


masters of our fates

by rulesofthebeneath (radishphilosophy)



Category: Choices: High School Story: Class Act (Visual Novel)
Genre: (the musical), ...but don't make assumptions based on that and the warning, Based on The Fault in Our Stars, Cancer, Depression, F/M, High School, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Pain, Production Tech Work, Technical theatre, cancer support group, implications of skye x mc, mentions of parental abuse, ragtime, slight skye x mc, stage management
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:08:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21706489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radishphilosophy/pseuds/rulesofthebeneath
Summary: Grace glared into the mirror, trying to make the edge of the wig meet her natural hairline seamlessly. It was a futile effort-- it was always a futile effort-- but for some reason, this bothered her more today than it usually did.Support group. The idea scared her, frankly. How was she supposed to go up in front of a whole bunch of people and tell them her life story? She could scarcely remember the last time she’d been onstage. Pre-diagnosis, for sure. Back in middle school, when she was just a bright-eyed thirteen-year-old trying her best to fit in.Now sixteen, she looked into the mirror and shook her head. Three years seemed more like a lifetime ago, when she thought about how much had changed. How much she had changed.
Relationships: Ajay Bhandari/Main Character (High School Story: Class Act)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 22





	1. Chapter 1

Grace glared into the mirror, trying to make the edge of the wig meet her natural hairline seamlessly. It was a futile effort-- it was  _ always _ a futile effort-- but for some reason, this bothered her more today than it usually did.

_ Support group. _ The idea scared her, frankly. How was she supposed to go up in front of a whole bunch of people and tell them her life story? She could scarcely remember the last time she’d been onstage. Pre-diagnosis, for sure. Back in middle school, when she was just a bright-eyed thirteen-year-old trying her best to fit in.

Now sixteen, she looked into the mirror and shook her head. Three years seemed more like a lifetime ago, when she thought about how much had changed. How much she had changed.

She finally decided to just take the wig off and ran a comb through the layers of her hair cut into a long pixie. She didn’t like it, but it would have to do today. There was no use putting on airs for other teenagers that also had cancer. They’d see right through her ill-fitting wig that could only trick the most gullible. And anyways, her nasal cannula and the cart that she always dragged around with her that held her oxygen canister was a dead giveaway that something was very, very wrong with her.

_ Sixteen and dying, _ she thought to herself, seeing her humorless smirk reflected back at her. There had been a time when she was still soft inside. Grace liked that part of herself, but it hadn’t been strong enough to last through the chemotherapy, the surgeries, the doctor’s appointments where she was told she didn’t have long.

_ And yet, _ Grace thought,  _ life keeps dragging me along. Like roadkill that got stuck to the bottom of a car tire. _

She knew she wasn’t supposed to think like that. That was why her therapist told her mom about the support group that met in the auditorium of some old high school in town. It was the same one she would’ve ended up going to, if it weren’t for… everything else.

Her parents had taken her out of school upon her diagnosis of thyroid cancer, when she was 13. What had followed had been the worst years of her young life, poked and prodded and cut open and flushed with chemicals within an inch of death. That’s what they’d told her, at least. 

Her cancer had proven untreatable. Even though she underwent surgery to remove her entire thyroid, the cancer had already spread into her lungs and was slowly drowning her. Chemotherapy didn’t touch the tumors, and the aggressive rounds of every kind of drug that the doctors thought might help caused all her hair to fall out and all the fat on her body to disappear, leaving her skeletal. But even as the tumors grew and grew, even as her skin broke out in rashes and her ribs showed through her skin, even as she spent long nights drowning on fluid-filled lungs, her heart kept beating. 

Grace didn’t know why. And sometimes she wished it hadn’t. But it did, and a couple medical trials and a few experimental drugs later, the tumors had stopped growing. And Grace resurfaced, hacking the fluid up and out of her lungs, agonizingly and beautifully alive. Her doctors had called it a miracle, and her parents called it a blessing. Only Grace saw it as it truly was, though.

She saw the collateral damage that her family had faced. She knew her brushes with death had traumatized her twin brother, who was maybe the only person in the world who knew her better than she knew herself. And her parents had given up so much-- their diner, which had been their dream ever since they were newlywed twenty-somethings, had had to go so they could pay for Grace’s treatment. Now her father worked grueling hours as a line cook and her mother worked at a bookshop part time, but cared for Grace full time. 

In truth, Grace knew that she had only destroyed their lives. That although nobody would say it, it would’ve been easier had she succumbed to the water in her lungs.

But maybe not. If there was anything worse than dying of cancer, it was having a kid who died of cancer. Or a twin. No, Grace wouldn’t wish that on them. Even though she wished they cared less, she knew she meant the world to her family. And they meant the world to her, too. 

But sometimes, it was so hard to breathe.

She made the mistake of mentioning that statement to her therapist, which was what had brought her here. In the living room of her house, with her twin brother fishing their car keys out of a dish on the counter, getting ready to drive her to the school.

As they left the house and started into the warm Saturday morning, Grace squinted to shield her eyes from the brightness of the June sun. 

“You clearly aren’t getting out enough,” James said pointedly, though he grinned as he pressed the button on the key fob to unlock the door. “I don’t think I’ve seen you leave your bed at all this week.”

“Sleep fights cancer,” Grace mumbled as she climbed into the car, pulling her oxygen cart in after. She closed the door, making sure it didn’t shut on the line.

“Yeah, but I hear fresh air does too,” James replied. When Grace didn’t answer, he turned on the radio to a pop station. He reversed the car out of the driveway and onto the street they lived on, and they rode in silence.

Not five minutes later, though, James slammed the button that silenced the radio. Grace looked over at him, startled.

“You never smile anymore,” he said.

“I’m dying,” Grace retorted. She made to turn back around to the window, but her line got tangled around a button of her sweater and forced her to spend a few moments with shaky fingers untangling it.

“You’re not, though,” James said, taking advantage of her line malfunction to hold her captive in a conversation. “I mean, your body’s not perfect and your health still sucks, but you’re not gonna die anytime soon.”

“Thanks to a drug that’s expensive as hell,” Grace said, again trying to cut herself out of the conversation. James wouldn’t let it happen though.

“That’s not the point, and you know it,” he said, and even though his eyes were turned towards the road, Grace could feel them flashing with anger. “You were given a chance to live, and instead you just lay around sleeping and watching TV. I know you want to go out and do things, but you won’t let yourself. Why?”

Grace fumed. She was furious at her brother, because his words touched every frayed nerve in her brain. 

“I wish I had a dog instead of a twin,” she said finally. “At least a dog wouldn’t judge me.”

“You’d have to clean up its poop,” James said matter-of-factly.

“A small price to pay for getting to keep my secrets.”

James rolled his eyes, though both had calmed down enough for twin smiles to show on their faces.

“Make me a deal, and I’ll leave you alone about it,” James offered.

Grace raised an eyebrow. “What’s the catch?”

“Try to socialize at the support group,” he said. “It’s people like you. They won’t judge you. And besides, you already know Mrs. Silva.”

That was true. Their neighbor, Mrs. Silva, had gone through breast cancer a while back, and had relapsed when Grace was 14. Grace had heard that the high school where her kid, Rory, went had used the school play to raise money for her treatment. She was in remission now.

“Plus, maybe Rory will be there.”

Rory had been Grace’s and James’ childhood best friend, but Grace had lost touch with Rory post-diagnosis. She’d lost touch with pretty much everyone. James and Rory ran in different circles at school, but they spoke occasionally. Grace remembered how they’d run against each other for student body president, with Rory eventually winning when James threw his support behind them. In return, James was their vice president. It had all worked out for the best, but Grace was pretty sure the months leading up to it had been awful for James. She hadn’t been home enough to really pay attention to him, but she could tell he was stressed during his daily visits to her hospital room. She still held a lot of guilt in her heart for not being there for him during his time of need.

“If it means I get to binge-watch America’s Most Eligible once I get home, then fine. Deal. I’ll say a few words to Rory, and their mom.”

“Thank youuuuu,” James said in a sing-song voice, laughing. His laugh was infectious, one of the things Grace both loved and hated about him. She couldn’t resist, and giggled a little too. James noticed, and gasped dramatically.

“There’s your smile! I thought it had gone missing.”

Grace whacked him, but his athlete’s physique hardly noticed her weak attempt. Before James’ grin faded entirely, Grace saw that he had pulled up to the school and she got out as quickly as she could, careful not to tangle herself in her line again.

“Thanks for the ride, James,” she said.

“No problem. I’ll pick you up in an hour?”

Grace pressed her lips together and looked towards the sign that marked the building as Berry High School. Suddenly, she wanted to know what else she’d missed out on, besides the play and the election.

“No, I think I’ll get a ride home with Rory and Mrs. Silva, maybe get dinner with them. It’s been way too long since I’ve spent time with them.”

James grinned, and Grace swore that it lit up the entire day. Regardless of what he said to her, it had been way too long since he’d truly smiled either.

“Damn right it has. I’ll tell mom, and we’ll see you at home later.”

“See you.”

With that, Grace turned and walked through the doors of Berry High School. As soon as she crossed into the front lobby, she spotted the door to the auditorium, conveniently propped open for wheelchair users. She slipped inside as quietly as she could with the oxygen canister rattling around in the cart.

The theatre was decked out in red, the ruby-colored curtains that framed the stage complemented by the deep red seats. Grace ran her hand along the stained velour, wondering how old it was. Then, an enthusiastic voice pulled her out of her reverie.

“Is that  _ Grace?! _ ” the voice said, and then Rory Silva themselves stood up from one of the folding chairs placed in a circle on the stage. They ran down the stairs and threw themselves at Grace, nearly knocking her over with a massive bear hug. Grace was barely able to steady herself by gripping the edge of a seat tightly.

Rory soon noticed that Grace wasn’t hugging back, presumably because she held onto the theatre seat with a death grip and her oxygen cart with the other. They released her quickly, stepping back in horror.

“Oh god, Grace, I’m so sorry. Did I hurt you?”

Grace forced a smile onto her face. She loved Rory like a sibling, but hadn’t expected to be so aggressively greeted within seconds of stepping into the auditorium. The interaction had winded her.

“No, don’t worry,” she managed. Rory nodded, but still looked wary.

“We’re all up here,” they said, gesturing towards the circle of chairs onstage. About half of them were filled, and Grace didn’t recognize any of the faces. One of them was staring at her, a healthy-looking boy wearing a blazer, jeans, and thick glasses. He had one eyebrow raised, and the whole look came off rather condescendingly to Grace. 

_ Great, _ she thought.  _ Some asshole already doesn’t like me. _

She broke eye contact with the boy and turned back to Rory.

“Come on up to the stage. We have a ramp set up and everything.”

Grace snorted, noting the presence of a girl in a wheelchair on the stage. “I sure hope you do.”

Rory laughed, and the two headed up towards the stage. Once Grace rolled her hand-cart up the ramp, which took more effort than she’d hoped, she was greeted by Mrs. Silva, a slight woman not much taller than Grace who was short herself, wrapping her into a tight hug. 

“It’s great to see you, my dear. We’ve missed you around the house, like when you and Rory were kids.”

“Well, we’re not exactly kids anymore,” Grace said, and then instantly regretted it as Mrs. Silva’s face fell slightly.  _ God, _ Grace reprimanded herself silently.  _ Why can’t you just fake your way through a conversation? _

To Mrs. Silva’s credit, she recovered quickly. She put on a warm smile. “As a mother, I’ll always see Rory’s friends as the little kids who used to dig up my flowers.”

Grace smiled despite herself, then Mrs. Silva released her. Grace knew she needed to find somewhere to sit down soon, she could already feel herself getting weak. She sat down in the first chair she could find, directly across from Rory… and the boy who had been staring at her, who was now just eyeing her occasionally. It unsettled her, and she wrapped her sweater tighter around herself. She decided to stare back at him, to try and assert dominance, and he raised both of his eyebrows like he was amused. She didn’t dare break his gaze for fear of losing.

A few minutes and a couple people later, Mrs. Silva finally sat in the chair that she had been standing by. Grace tore her gaze away from the boy to face her, but she could still feel his eyes on her.

“Hi, everyone.” she started. “Thanks for coming today. My name is Brenda Silva, but you all can just call me Brenda.”

_ Like hell I will, _ Grace thought to herself.  _ I’ve never called you anything other than Mrs. Silva, and I’m not going to stop now. _

“I want to go around the circle and have everyone introduce themselves to start. Name, age, and diagnosis if you feel comfortable sharing that. I’ll start: as I said my name is Brenda, I’m forty six years old, and I have breast cancer, but I’ve been in remission for two years.”

She gestured to Rory to continue.

“Oh, um, hi, I’m Rory,” they said, smiling in their characteristic goofy way. “I’m seventeen, and, uh, I don’t have cancer but I’m here to support my mom.” They gestured to Mrs. Silva as deferentially as if she were royalty, making some in the circle let out a small laugh.

The next person to go was a small, bored-looking but rather pretty redhead. “My name’s Skye, I’m sixteen, and I had leukemia as a kid but I’ve been in remission for four years now,” she said, smiling slightly at the last few words. Grace was happy for her too- four years was almost a guarantee of total remission- but a pang of jealousy swiped through her as well. She tried to suppress it.

“Congratulations, Skye,” Mrs. Silva said warmly. “Here’s hoping for five.”

Skye’s eyes widened, but she accepted the comment and ducked her head. Once the attention was off her and onto the next person, she slouched down in her chair. It was clear that she didn’t want to be noticed or singled out. Grace tended to agree with her. There was a time where Grace lived for the spotlight, but that time had passed. 

She started thinking about texting James to make him come pick her up after all, but before she could surreptitiously dig her phone out of her back pocket, it was her turn to introduce herself.

“Hi, I’m Grace,” she started softly. “I’m sixteen too. My original diagnosis was thyroid, but it spread to my lungs.”

The others in the circle nodded, and the attention passed mercifully to the next person. Without meaning to, Grace found her eyes on the boy with the glasses again. He was looking at her with interest, almost as if he was trying to analyze her.

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been staring when he looked away towards Mrs. Silva. Grace looked down at her lap.

_ Get a grip _ , she told herself. 

“I’m Ajay,” he said, introducing himself with a rather authoritative voice. “I’m seventeen, and I had osteosarcoma.”

“Had?” Grace asked before she could stop herself. Everyone turned towards her, and she turned red. Ajay’s eyes fixed on hers.

“Yes, had. I went into remission last summer after my lower leg was amputated.” He pulled up the hem of his jeans to show a clearly artificial ankle joint. Grace bit her lip and looked away, embarrassed. 

From what she knew about it, osteosarcoma was rarely terminal, but it usually took an amputation to check you out of the hospital. She felt bad for having judged him just because he looked healthy, and she knew exactly how frail she must look with her cannula and her face puffy from the miracle drug. In contrast, he stood tall and bore no signs of the illness that had taken his leg, save for the prosthetic. His hair looked smooth, not a single hair out of place unlike her messy hairdo, and she found herself starting to wish that she had at least tried to put the wig on.

_ Stop thinking about him, _ she told herself, and she turned to watch Mrs. Silva as she started a conversation about something or other. Grace effectively zoned out, an action she’d mastered during the long lonely hours of recovery in the hospital or through the chemotherapy treatments. It was second nature by now.

By the time Ajay spoke up again, Grace didn’t know how much time had passed, but his voice startled her into consciousness. 

“I just don’t see the point of optimism,” he was saying, “if we’re all going to die anyway.”

“Ajay,” Mrs. Silva said quietly, in a warning tone.

Grace’s blood started to boil, and she knew she was overreacting, but she couldn’t stop it.  _ He _ wasn’t going to die. His cancer was in remission, he’d been given that chance at life that Grace hadn’t been. Who was he to think he could own cynicism?

“That’s easy for you to say,” Grace retorted, and she watched as his gaze met hers, his eyebrows lifted up again in that amused way, which just made Grace more mad.

“What’s easy for me to say?” he asked, a slight smirk at the edge of his lips. Grace narrowed her eyes.

“That we’re all going to die anyway. I’m dying every day, and you got another chance at life.” As she said the words, she became aware that she was unintentionally repeating her brother’s point from earlier, in the car.

He cocked his head to the side, looking like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He simply watched Grace, like she was an interesting TV show. She bit off her next words with all the malice she possessed.

“Don’t tell me what it’s like to die, since you get to live.”

“Grace--” Mrs. Silva tried to cut her off, but she was already done. She stared back down at her lap, twisting her hands together, avoiding Mrs. Silva’s eyes. There was no way she could ride home with them now. Not now that she’d said something really impulsive in front of Mrs. Silva’s whole support group. She was already regretting her words.

Mrs. Silva changed the topic and started to wrap up the meeting, and through it all, though Grace looked down, she could still sense Ajay’s eyes on her. As soon as the group finished the meeting, Grace was out of her seat like a shot, pulling her canister after her as fast as she could go until she was finally out of the building. 

Up against the wall, she panted until she regained her breath. As Rory and Mrs. Silva walked over to where their car was parked, and the others either drove or caught rides themselves, Grace remembered that she had no ride. She cursed audibly, and at that exact moment Ajay appeared just outside the doors of Berry High, a cane held in his left hand. An amused smile played on his lips.

“Need a ride?” he offered, clearly enjoying the way her eyes flashed at his words.

“I’m fine,” she said curtly, pulling her phone out of her pocket to text James. Before she could unlock the phone, though, he spoke again.

“You were right, you know. I shouldn’t be telling you how to live.”

Grace looked up.

“I shouldn’t be telling you how to live, either,” she argued back. “I barely know you.”

“Do you think we can fix that?” he asked, an eyebrow raised in what now seemed to be a curious gaze, rather than a condescending one.

Grace met his eyes for a few moments, then nodded slowly.

“I do need a ride,” she said. “I was supposed to ride home with Rory and get dinner at their house, but, well…” She gestured to the Silva’s car, already pulling out onto the main road.

“Oh, okay,” Ajay said, clearly not having expected that. “How long have you known Rory?”

“I’ve lived next door to them my whole life,” Grace said, biting her lip.

“Really? I’ve never heard them talk about you.”

_ Ouch, _ Grace thought. That was a hard blow, to know her childhood best friend never thought about her anymore, but she supposed it was fair. This meeting had been the first time she’d seen them in a few months, and that visit was hardly more than a half hour long.

“Oh,” she said, and Ajay turned to her as he seemed to realize he’d said something wrong. He opened his mouth, presumably to apologize, but Grace shook her head and he backed down.

“I am pretty hungry,” Grace said, staring off into the distance towards the Golden Griddle. Even when she was feeling her best, she could still be swept away by the waves of guilt over that. They had given up their dream, their pride and joy, just for her.

She would never be able to forgive herself for that.

“Let’s go get lunch, then. On me.”

Startled out of her self-imposed guilt trip, Grace simply stared at Ajay.

“I barely know you,” she managed, repeating herself from earlier.

“I thought we were fixing that?” he asked, both eyebrows raised. 

_ He thinks I’m quirky, _ Grace realized. That was fair enough.

“Sure, alright.”

Ajay shook his head.

“You’re a very… interesting person, Grace.”

Grace didn’t have a response to that, so when Ajay turned to walk towards his car, she followed him silently.

His car was the fanciest car she’d ever seen, and she couldn’t even figure out how much it must’ve cost. It was a sports car, but he clearly wasn’t really thrilled with it. In fact, once they got into the car, he turned to her before starting the engine.

“I’m not an asshole,” he said, causing her to laugh. “I know how it looks. But there’s a reason why I have this car. And it’s not because I’m a rich snobby asshole.”

“Oh? And what’s the reason?” Grace said through a big smile.

Ajay started the engine, which practically purred to life, and he wrinkled his nose at the sound.

“I can’t share all of my secrets,” he said simply, and backed out of the parking space.

Grace wanted to know more, but she dropped the subject. She actually kind of liked the mystery. One day, she’d be able to get that story out of him.

_ Wait, _ she thought.  _ One day? You can’t think like that. Who knows what one day will be? _

She shook her head, trying her best to enjoy the moment. The reminder of her circumstances creeped in around the edges, making everything foggy.

“Where to?” Ajay asked, and the fog thinned.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as Ajay merged onto the highway, he pressed the button that turned on the radio. It was tuned to talk radio, but before Grace could side-eye him he quickly switched over to the CD player, which instantly started playing a song off the  _ Wicked _ soundtrack. It was Grace’s turn to raise her eyebrows.

“You like musicals?” she asked.

“Love them,” he replied. He started humming along with the singers.

“Me too,” Grace admitted. “I cried the first time I saw Wicked.”

Ajay bit his lip. “Did you do theatre? Pre-diagnosis, I mean.”

“Oh, I was such a diva. There was no getting me out of the spotlight,” Grace recalled with a laugh. 

“I think I saw that part of you in support group,” Ajay said. “You were zoned out for most of it, but it seemed like whenever I said something you had to steal my spotlight.” He smiled so she’d know he was teasing, but she still felt a wave of insecurity go through her.

“Yeah, I… don’t know what that was all about. I’m sorry for interrupting you.”

Ajay shook his head. “No, don’t apologize. Sometimes I need to be put in my place.”

Grace snorted, but didn’t say anything further. They rode along, listening to the song, until the song switched, and Ajay apparently couldn’t contain himself to just humming anymore.

“One short day in the Emerald City…” he sang along with the chorus on the soundtrack. As soon as Grace turned to look at him, he raised his eyebrows: a clear invitation.

She rolled her eyes, but caved in.

“One short day in the Emerald City. One short day, full of so much to do,” she sang along shyly, fully aware that her weakened voice couldn’t compare with his, or with what he was used to hearing.

But he didn’t seem to care.

“Every way that you look in the city, there’s something exquisite you’ll want to visit before the day’s through,” he sang, his eyes trained on the road but a stunning grin spreading across his face. 

“There are buildings tall as Quoxwood trees,” Grace sang again, hesitantly.

“Dress salons,” Ajay added, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Libraries,” Grace half-laughed.

“Palaces!” Ajay squeaked, imitating Glinda’s peppy voice, and Grace lost the next line to a fit of giggles.

“There are wonders like I’ve never seen,” Ajay sang next, recovering more quickly than Grace could.

“It’s all grand,” sang Grace, her voice cracking on the top note. In the embarrassment, she lost her breath, and with it all focus on the singing.

Ajay noticed, and kept one eye on her careful breathing as he merged off the highway. He turned the music down, but not all the way off.

Grace tried to stop herself from audibly gasping for air, but it was a close thing. She didn’t want Ajay to see her like that, so weak.

_ Damn lungs,  _ she thought to herself. Embarrassing her in front of somebody she found herself really wanting to impress, for some reason.

He pulled into the diner’s parking lot, and looked over at her. She could feel the concern in his gaze, and without looking at him, she waved him off while taking carefully controlled breaths from her cannula.

“I’m… fine… not… dying…” she said between breaths, and relief crossed Ajay’s face.

“Do you need anything? Um, water or something?”

He was clearly out of his depth.

“No… just… one… second…” Grace said, still wheezing slightly. She gripped the edge of the seat tightly as she tried to force the air into her lungs, tried to keep their pathetic wheezing and trembling to a minimum. It took her more than the one second she’d asked for, but eventually her lungs were back under autonomous control.

She sat up and saw Ajay looking at her, pity clear on his face.

“No,” she said, her voice embarrassingly faint but her will strong enough to make up for it. She cleared her throat. “No,” she said again. “None of that. Do you like it when people look at you like that when they find out about your leg?”

“I-- no,” Ajay conceded, shifting his gaze away from her. “I’m sorry. I was just worried.”

“I’m fine,” Grace said, her guard shooting back up. “No need to worry.”

“Okay.” With that, Ajay got out of the car. Grace followed suit, and the two walked into the diner and were seated as soon as they got there by an older lady. They each ordered hot tea and a stack of pancakes, and then Grace saw Ajay’s eyes fixed on her again.

“What?”

“Does that happen a lot?” he asked.

Grace sighed. “Not anymore. It used to happen a ton before I started taking the medicine I’m on now.”

“Oh,” he said. 

Grace looked down at her hands. She tried to figure out how to break the tension, but eventually it was Ajay speaking up again that did it.

“So, anyways. Grace. What’s your last name?”

It was clear he was just fishing around for something to say, but Grace decided to humor him.

“Lee,” she said. “Short and sweet. What’s yours?”

“Bhandari,” he said. “Neither short nor sweet. Do you have any siblings?”

“My twin brother goes to Berry,” she said. “He was running against Rory for student body president last year. Now he’s VP.”

“Oh, you’re James’ sister?” 

“Um. Yes?” she said, a question masking the surprise in her words. “How do you know my brother?”

“I don’t know him well, it’s just that I was Rory’s campaign manager,” he said. 

“Oh, so you’re who I have to thank for all the times he woke me up in the middle of the night to brainstorm campaign ideas.”

Ajay laughed. “Only if that means you’re who  _ I _ have to thank for his pool noodle sword fight during Rory’s flash mob,”

Grace giggled. “Guilty as charged. Now, do you have any siblings?”

“My little brother, Mohit.”

“How old is he?”

“He’s eight.”

“Wow, that’s quite the age difference.”

“Yeah, really. Sometimes it almost feels like he’s my nephew or something, not my brother. I guess once we’re older it’ll stop feeling like that, but since I basically parented him most of last year…” he trailed off, a guarded look on his face. 

They sat in silence while Grace tried desperately to find something to ease the tension.

“Taking care of your brother and running a campaign during your junior year, sounds stressful,” she said with a half-hearted smile.

He loosened up a little.

“It was. I’m glad the school year is over, even though I really do like school. It was just hard to keep up with everything. Especially math.”

“You don’t like math?” Grace asked, an eyebrow raised. 

“More like math doesn’t like me,” Ajay mumbled, punctuating the sentence with a self-deprecating laugh.

It was a nice laugh.

_ Shut up _ , Grace told her brain.

“Enough about me,” Ajay said. “Tell me about you. What’s your story?”

Grace sighed.

“Well, I was diagnosed with stage four thyroid cancer when I was thirteen, and then–”

He cut her off. “No, no, not your Cancer Story. Just your normal story.”

“My normal story?”

“Yeah. Like where you were born, what your hopes and dreams are, your favorite color, things like that.”

Grace was bewildered. Nobody had asked her that in a while. Nowadays, they just saw her cannula and wanted to know why she had to use it. A warm, genuine smile grew on her face, and a giddy bubbly feeling rose up inside her.

“Uh, well, where do I start? I was born in England,” she said, watching his carefully neutral expression.

“England?” he asked, an eyebrow raised and a slight tinge of surprise. “I didn’t know you guys were British.”

“My parents aren’t, just me and James. Our birth parents died when we were really young and our other relatives gave us up for adoption.”

“Oh, you’re adopted. I guess that makes sense. I was about to say that you don’t have an accent at all.”

“Nope, no accent for me. I always kind of thought that would be cool to have a British accent.”

“You’d certainly be able to do a lot of Shakespeare,” Ajay remarked.

Grace nodded. “I never really got the hang of Shakespeare. Or British accents, for that matter.”

“It’s definitely hard to master. So, you said that you used to act?”

“Yes, and I was a complete spotlight hog,” Grace said. “You can ask Rory. I used to make James watch little plays that Rory and I wrote when we were kids. I don’t think they’ve ever forgotten the roles that I’d force them into.”

The waitress reappeared then, holding two plates of delicious-looking pancakes. Grace dug in eagerly, the hunger from not eating breakfast that morning overtaking her.

“So what about you?” Grace asked Ajay through a mouthful of pancakes. “What do you do? Besides hating math.”

“I’m actually the director of the shows we do at Berry,” he said, neatly cutting his pancakes into squares. “I’ve always loved directing, and it’s really great of the theatre teacher to let me have so much control over the productions. I do some directing outside of school, too.”

“Wait,  _ you’re _ the Berry High student director?” Grace asked, surprised.

“Yeah?”

“So you’re the one who convinced the school to use the play as a fundraiser for Rory’s mom.”

Ajay started to look a little sheepish. “Yes, that was me.”

“Wow, Ajay,” Grace said, her admiration for him growing tenfold. “I don’t think I have to tell you how much that helped them.”

“It’s not a big deal,” he said, his face turning red. “I mean, obviously it was a big deal for the Silvas, but it was the least I could do. A family friend selflessly helped us out when I was first getting used to my new leg, so it was only fair to pass the kindness on.”

Grace cocked her head, studying him. His eyes were trained on the table, his hands busying themselves with the pancakes. It was clear that he hadn’t started the fundraiser so he could get recognition, but that he actually had genuinely wanted to help someone in need. 

_ You don’t see that much anymore, _ Grace thought.  _ The world needs more people like that. _

Ajay must have felt her eyes on him, so he looked up and matched her gaze at last.

“What?” he asked.

“What do you mean?” Grace countered, a little embarrassed to have been caught staring. “You were staring at me during the whole meeting.”

“Ah, yes. Well at first it was because you were new, because I’ve never seen you in group before. Then by the end, it was because you’d challenged me and argued with me.”

“I’m still sorry about that.”

“I still don’t want you to be sorry about it,” Ajay said. “I like that. I like people who aren’t afraid of talking about the hard stuff.”

Grace shrugged. “Well, when you’ve been dying for three years straight, it’s hard to have a filter about stuff like death. Thinking about that stuff is as natural as a heartbeat for me.”

“Me too,” Ajay admitted, “but I think that’s less because of the cancer and more because I spent middle school stumbling around in a depressive haze.”

“That’s what I do now,” Grace said with a slight grin. “That’s why James told me to go get a life. He’s tired of me just sitting around the house binge-watching reality TV.”

“And your version of getting a life is hanging around some stuck-up director from support group?”

Grace rolled her eyes, casting her eyes around the diner as she tried to come up with a response. The only feeling she could register was nostalgia, as she took in the tiled floor, the old-fashioned booths and the jukebox in the corner. 

“God, I miss this place,” she said without thinking.

“Oh, I know,” Ajay replied, stopping to take a sip out of his mug. “I think the old owners sold it a few years ago, and it just doesn’t quite have its old charm anymore.”

_ That’s my fault, _ Grace thought, and she bit her lip. She was the reason her parents had sold the diner, maybe even the reason they weren’t happy anymore. They tried to hide it from her, but she saw how exhausted her dad was after those long shifts. She saw the circles under her mom’s eyes that never went away.

She snapped back into the present and Ajay’s eyes were on her. He looked concerned, and she realized that he must have said something to her.

“Um…” she said, not knowing how to reply. 

“Nevermind,” Ajay said, shaking his head. 

Grace smiled shyly, appreciating the out. “So, should we split the check?”

“That seems fair,” Ajay agreed. The two examined the bill and paid for their respective parts at the register, and then before they knew it, they were back out in the oppressively hot afternoon.

Grace looked down at her hands. “I don’t want to go home yet,” she said. 

Ajay laughed. “Enjoying my company too much?”

“Enjoying the sunshine too much. I haven’t been outside in weeks.”

“Well, then I know where we have to go!” Ajay said, leading Grace towards his car.

She got in. “Is it the park?” she asked.

“I can’t share all my secrets,” he said again, causing Grace to roll her eyes.

A few minutes later, Ajay parked his car in a lot riddled with fallen twigs and green leaves.

“You brought me to the park,” Grace deadpanned.

“You wanted more sunshine,” Ajay pointed out. “I’m just trying to fulfill your request.”

Grace sighed and made for the park’s entrance, Ajay trailing behind her.

“So what was that? At the diner?”

“It was nothing.”

“It clearly wasn’t nothing,” Ajay argued back, cornering Grace in the conversation.

“I’ve already told you too much about myself.”

“That’s not true at all. Only once in our hour-long conversation did I see anything resembling an emotion.”

“Oh? When was that? You’ll have to tell me so I don’t do it again.”

Grace beelined for a bench, the small amount of walking having already exhausted her. Once she reached it, she tried not to collapse. Ajay sat down next to her, his eyes on her, his expression expectant. She knew exactly what he wanted to hear.

“My parents were the old owners of the Golden Griddle,” she said quietly. “They gave it up because they couldn’t afford both me and the restaurateur lifestyle.”

“Shit,” Ajay cursed quietly. “That’s… shit.”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “I took away their dreams. If I’d just died, yknow…”

“They’d have missed you,” Ajay said, and Grace had to admit he made a good point. But she wasn’t going to let him have that.

“They’d have gotten over it,” she said, and Ajay didn’t look like he had a response to that, so the conversation lapsed into silence.

“My parents are divorced,” he offered, out of the blue. “I know it’s because of me, even though they say it’s not.”

“Ajay, I’m sure it’s not--”

“It was because they were always arguing about money,” he said, cutting her off. “My chemo, radiation, surgeries and the new leg must’ve cost… I don’t even know.”

Grace pressed her lips together; it was her turn to not know what to say. She wrung her hands together, silent until he decided to speak again.

“So not only did I ruin their marriage, I also completely ruined Mohit’s life. He should be able to grow up with both his parents, but instead he only sees Dad on weekends. Objectively, I caused that to happen.”

“You can’t control the fact that you had cancer, though,” Grace pointed out. “And you can’t control the fact that the treatments cost a lot.”

“I should never have complained about my knee,” he said with a laugh. “That’s what got us into this mess. I should’ve just shut up about it.”

“You would’ve died,” Grace said, slowly realizing how much she didn’t want that to happen.

Ajay shrugged. “And saved them a ton of medical expenses.”

“But if you’d died, it would’ve hurt Mohit. He’s so young, it wouldn’t be fair to put him through that.”

“You can’t say your family would get over your death and then turn around and say that to me, though. It’s the same thing. If my death would hurt my brother, your death would hurt your brother just as much.”

Grace huffed. “I guess. Sometimes I think, though, maybe it would’ve been better if I’d died a year or so ago. Before they got me into the clinical trial I’m on. They’re still paying a ton for my medication, and I’m still not getting any better. It seems like a waste of time and money because I’m still going to die young anyway.”

It took Ajay a few minutes to come up with a reply, but when he did, Grace almost smiled. Before long she found herself lost in the conversation, which jumped from morose topic to morose topic. By the time the sun set hours later, still sitting beside Ajay on the wooden park bench, she had gotten a little lost in him too.

It was freeing for a moment-- to do all those things normal teenagers did, get crushes and have friends and go out to the park-- until reality came crashing back to her. This was only temporary. She was just living on borrowed time, until her miracle drug stopped working, until the cancer spread to her brain and made her into a zombie. She couldn’t do that to him. But damn, having let her walls down for the first time was such a rush. Over the course of their conversation, she’d never felt so understood.

But he wasn’t dying, and she was. That was something that would always strain their relationship. So Grace turned it off. She shut down that part of her brain that made her want to giggle when he looked at her, that made her desperately want to reach out and put her hand on top of his.

“I have to get home,” she said abruptly. Ajay looked surprised, but he didn’t say anything until they’d gotten to the car. Grace walked a little slower than usual, under the excuse of being tired, but she really wanted to draw the night out longer, the one night where she had felt normal.

“At least give me your number,” he said. “It was nice to talk to someone who gets it. I don’t really talk to many other survivors, and it was a good conversation.”

Grace decided she’d allow herself that. A shining chance at feeling normal again. And if she was completely honest with herself, she couldn’t turn down the opportunity to talk to him again.

“Ok, fine, give me your phone.”

When he smiled, her dimmed world lit up just a little, but she ignored the way her heart skipped a beat. There wasn’t time for that.

By the time he pulled up at her house, though, her thoughts were pitch black again, so she had to shut them all out. It was her best coping strategy, a suit of armour to shield her from the gnawing pain the words could cause.

“Goodnight, Grace,” Ajay said, but she could barely hear him. 

“Goodnight,” she forced herself to say, and then she went into her house. Not having the energy to talk to her parents or James, she just forced a sleepy smile, told them she was tired, and headed off to her room. She locked the door, turned all the lights off, changed out her oxygen canister to one that would let her make it through the night, and tried not to think.


	3. Chapter 3

As much as Grace tried to forget about her weird feelings, the subject of them kept texting her.

**Ajay:** So, remember how we talked about theatre?

Grace felt like she should respond, but it was an early morning, the sun was shining through her wi ndow just right, and she didn’t want to bother to turn off her BiPap. None of this actually prevented her from responding, because she’d fallen asleep with her phone just out of reach on her bed, but she was grasping for excuses. Eventually, she caved.

**Grace:** Yeah?

It sounded a little hostile, and she wanted to take it back almost as soon as she’d sent it. To his credit, though, Ajay appeared to ignore it.

**Ajay:** This summer, I’m directing the musical Ragtime at Cedar Cove Community Theatre.

**Grace:** That’s nice, Ragtime is one of my favorite soundtracks.

**Ajay:** It’s only been a few rehearsals, but it’s been going very well so far. Skye’s my stage manager, and Rory plays Coalhouse, of course.

**Grace:** Naturally. They’ve got the baritone for it.

She wasn’t surprised at all. Back in middle school choir, she could always hear Rory’s booming, deep voice from the baritone section across the room. They had always had a talent for singing that Grace was envious of. She had been a good singer herself, but her flooded lungs made things much more difficult.

**Ajay:** I’m still trying to find someone to do lights, though. It wouldn’t be hard, because Skye’s already set the lights up in the right configurations. 

Grace narrowed her eyes at her phone.

**Grace:** Are you trying to recruit me?

**Ajay:** Is it that obvious?

**Grace:** Why? I don’t have any experience.

**Ajay:** Skye can teach you everything you need to know, and of course I’ll let you know what I think about your lighting decisions.

**Grace:** Your criticism sounds terrifying.

Despite the sentiment in her text, she laughed a little. She allowed herself to fantasize, for a moment, working tech on Ragtime. She imagined herself up in the cramped booth, with Skye teaching her the controls and Ajay standing over her chair, supervising. She thought of having a headset and hearing his voice in her ear, telling her to correct one of the spotlights or change the color of the backlighting.

She thought about Skye’s small voice calling cues, and Rory’s strong one singing the songs that made her tear up just from the pure emotion. It seemed almost too good to be true, and she told Ajay so.

**Grace:** It just seems too good to be true.

**Ajay:** It can be grueling work. During tech week, we’ll be there all day and into the night. You’ll get frustrated, angry, bored to tears, but you’ll also never be happier in your entire life than you will be on opening night.

**Grace:** I still don’t understand why you want me, but sure. I’ll do it, but you have to promise to let me quit when I mess up too much.

**Ajay:** I have the utmost faith in you. And if you mess up, I’ll just blame it on Rory.

**Grace:** Fine, fine. When’s the next rehearsal?

**Ajay:** Today, noon to six for techs. I can pick you up around 11 and we can get food beforehand, if you’d like.

_ Dammit, there goes that feeling again, _ Grace thought as her heart warmed up without her permission. 

**Grace:** Fine by me. See you then.

She checked the time, she had about three more hours until he’d be there. Begrudgingly, she unhooked her BiPap and set up her oxygen, making sure to hook one of the bigger tanks up to her cart. That one should last her all day. She left her room and ambled down the hall to where her family was eating breakfast. They all looked up at her in surprise.

“What?” she asked defensively. “I do stuff too, you know.”

“If by ‘stuff’ you mean ‘sit on the couch watching America’s Most Eligible’, then of course you do,” James said. Grace gave him the best stink eye she could muster.

“Want some breakfast?” her mom asked, quickly standing up and abandoning her own plate of perfectly-cooked fluffy pancakes.

“Sure,” she said, sitting down at the table across from James.

“What brings you out of your cave this early?” James asked. Grace shot him another death glare.

“I got roped into helping with a theatre production,” she said.

Her mom turned around from the pancakes sizzling on the stove. “Oh, that’s great, Gracie! You used to love theatre. I’m glad you’re getting involved again.”

“Don’t get used to it. I told the director he has free reign to make me leave when I inevitably ruin his show.”

“Hm, director. Is that by any chance the handsome gentleman who dropped you off last night?”

Grace ducked her head, her cheeks quickly warming. James saw her reaction, and quickly started teasing her.

“Yeah, I thought you were going to dinner with the Silvas,” he said. “What gives?”

“I was rude during support group, and I didn’t want to see Mrs. Silva’s disappointed face.”

“Grace,” her father admonished. “You shouldn’t be rude to her. She’s one of the few people who really knows what you’re going through.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. So anyways, I didn’t want to go with them but I had already told James not to pick me up, then Ajay asked if I needed a ride home.”

“Took you an awful long time to get home,” James mentioned. Grace glared at him.

“We got lunch and talked, normal stuff.”

“Oh, now that you say it, I think I know who this guy is. Honey,” he asked, appealing to his wife, “Isn’t that the kid who helped Mrs. Silva?”

“With the school play last year? Oh, yes, I think so! He’s a very talented director.”

“Can we stop talking about this?” Grace asked, making pleading eyes at her mother as she dropped a generous helping onto Grace’s plate.

The family begrudgingly agreed, and the talk changed to one of James’ upcoming summer league soccer games. Once Grace got up from the table to clear her plate, though, James followed.

“I didn’t even know you liked guys,” he said in a low tone, trying not to attract the attention of their parents. 

Grace could only shrug. “I dunno,” she said. “I really haven’t had much time to like anyone. I might be misreading the feelings.”

“I don’t think so,” James said. “Looks like a classic schoolgirl crush to me.”

Grace hit him with the rag she was using to clean her dishes.

“Go away, I need to get ready. He’s picking me up at 11.”

James wiggled his eyebrows at her, but retreated before she could hit him again.

After she wrestled with her wig for an hour and freaked out about her outfit and makeup for another, she got a text from Ajay letting her know he was in her driveway.

**Ajay:** I’m here, but no rush. Just a bit early.

Grace quickly threw on an oversized knit cardigan and escaped her room, oxygen cart in tow. When she made it out into the kitchen, her entire family was staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” her father said, being the first one to recover. “It’s just… you haven’t gone out in a while.”

“Be careful,” her mom said. “And tell Ajay that he’s welcome here for dinner after rehearsal.”

Several retorts crossed through her minds, sharp words that she knew from muscle memory. She could see the way her family’s hesitant smiles would drip off their faces into the masks that she knew they only wore for her. Ordinarily, she would’ve let those words fly off her tongue, but…

She was just so  _ tired. _ Tired of her own happiness always being a battle. There wasn’t much she could do about it, but she could let herself have this. A new friend, a new hobby, and maybe something that took a little weight off her parents’ shoulders.

So she ducked her head, letting a small smile cross her face, and nodded. Then she turned around and left the house.

Ajay was waiting for her in his stupid sports car right out front, and once he saw her, he looked confused but played it off masterfully.

“Nice hair,” he said once she’d gotten buckled in.

“Hmm, thanks,” she said, avoiding looking at him. 

“Special occasion?”

“Pretending I’m someone I’m not,” she said. 

“Fair enough,” he replied, backing out of the driveway and onto the main road. “I don’t think anyone at the theatre except for Rory and Skye even know that I only have one and a third legs. They might just think I have a bad knee or something, and that’s why I use the cane.”

“Little do they know,” Grace said. “Lucky you, that you can hide it.” She tugged self-consciously at her cannula. No matter if she wore a wig, if she slathered concealer under her eyes, the cannula meant she’d always look sick.

“Just tell them you have asthma,” Ajay said after a few seconds of thought. “And if they give you any grief, I’ll threaten to kick them out of the show.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Grace argued.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t kick them out. I spent far too long choosing the perfect cast and crew for this show. But they don’t know that.”

Grace rolled her eyes.

Thirty minutes, two take-out burgers, and a couple miles later, the two sat inside Ajay’s car in the parking lot of Cedar Cove Community Theatre. Ajay’s feet were kicked up on the dash as he finished off his fries, but Grace felt a little too self-conscious in the fancy car to do something like that.

“So Skye will be a better person to tell you what to do, but essentially you’ll be sitting in the house with her and I. I have your predecessor’s notebook, he made some notes on the first few scenes we blocked before he left, and I’ll give that to you once we go in. You’ll make notes on lighting that might look good, and she and I will both give you some pointers there.”

“And if I mess up?”

“We’ll fix it.”

Grace narrowed her eyes. “It seems like you guys can handle this on your own. Why do you want me there?”

It was a challenge, and they both sensed it. Ajay looked like he wanted to say something, but something in Grace’s expression must have changed his mind, because he just shrugged and looked away.

“We need someone to operate the light board, at the very least.”

Grace felt disappointment and relief all at once. As much as his answer had made her heart sink, she had been more scared to hear his actual reasoning.

“I think I can manage that,” she said, barbs returning to her tone. Pushing him away was natural territory, and so was sitting on Skye’s other side when rehearsal started. 

Ajay had been right-- there really wasn’t much to do. Her predecessor had already given her a sense of how to draw out the blocking diagrams, and Skye told her that was all she really could do during blocking rehearsals, since Ajay was so prone to changing things around. Occasionally, one or the other of them would whisper a suggestion for a spotlight or a fade out to her, and she’d dutifully scribble it down. It wasn’t difficult work, but she tackled it with more focus than she’d tackled anything in months.

The scenes crawled by, Ajay criticizing more details than Grace could even notice. He’d adjust the angle Rory was facing the audience with, and would tweak it for five full minutes until he was happy. Skye wrote everything down until her copy of the script had more eraser shavings on it than actual words.

Watching them work was intoxicating for Grace. They were like a well-oiled machine, catching every tiny thing wrong with a hand gesture or a prop placement and shifting it until everything just  _ fit _ . There was no other way to describe it. On first run through the scene would be good, but something was always missing. Ajay’s job, Grace realized, was to find that thing. Skye’s was to record it for posterity. And they were good at it.

By the time he finally called for a fifteen minute break, Grace was overwhelmed. While Ajay patrolled the theater, possibly in search of that missing  _ something _ , Skye noticed Grace’s internal struggle.

“Want to go somewhere quiet?” she asked.

Grace nodded quickly, and stood up as fast as she could without passing out.

Skye’s lips curled into a small, nearly invisible smile, and then she led the way to the tech loft.

It was on top of a rather nasty set of stairs, but with Skye close behind and carrying Grace’s tank, it was bearable. Once they got to the loft, though, Grace sat heavily in the closest chair and caught her breath. Skye sat carefully across from her, looking out onto the stage.

“This is the booth,” she said. “It’s where we’ll be during performances. You, me, and the sound guy.”

Grace cringed at the thought of having to climb those stairs every night. Once again, she cursed her stupid lungs. Why couldn’t they just work?

“How did you… get started… here?” Grace choked out. 

Skye ignored the coughing, which Grace was grateful for. 

“Needed to get out of the house,” she said. “I’m head tech at Berry, so it’s something I’m good at already. I danced some before I got sick, but after I went into remission I was too weak to do that, so I started poking around in the tech booth, and here we are.”

“You had leukemia, right?”

Skye nodded once. “ALL,” she said. “Pretty much the easiest cancer to cure.”

“Chemo can’t have been fun, though. Especially being young like you were.”

“Eleven when I was diagnosed,” Skye admitted, lowering her eyes. “It wasn’t. Less so when my parents decided to use me as a guilt weapon against their competitors.”

Grace furrowed her brows. “What?”

“Nothing,” Skye said, her face blank again. Grace recognized the trick; she also knew how to turn her features into a mask at the slightest provocation. Skye had let something slip that she’d rather keep private. “Just frustrated. Don’t worry about it.”

Grace let it go with a nod, and Skye turned back to the light board, pulling the dust cover off.

“This is your station. Basically, this is how you’ll get the right lights turned on and off.”

Skye held out a thick book for Grace to take. “The manual,” she explained. “It’ll be easier if you’re familiar with it.”

“Well, I don’t have much else to do,” Grace muttered under her breath. Skye heard her, and she arched a single thin eyebrow. Grace swore she saw the hint of a smile on her dark lips. That ghost of a smile filled her with a sense of belonging, a sense of home there in the foreign booth. She never wanted it to stop.

Grace and Skye talked over the board and lighting operations, soft voices filling the small booth, until Skye looked over at the clock. 

“Time to go back,” she said. Grace sighed.

“It’s too overwhelming down there. Can’t I just stay up here with you?”

Skye seemed to soften a little bit.

“I wish,” she said. “But we have a lot of work to do.”

Grace rolled her eyes, but took the hand that Skye offered her to help her up. Before Skye turned fully around, though, she bit her lip and looked directly at Grace.

Since the other girl was still holding her hand, the effect was a little overwhelming. Grace resisted the urge to step back, and instead stared right back into Skye’s blue eyes.

“I know this is all kind of intense,” Skye said softly. “But it really helped me. Maybe it’ll help you, too.”   
  


_ Help me? I don’t need help, _ Grace immediately wanted to fire back, but she closed her mouth just in time to keep the words from escaping. 

Skye seemed to recognize her mistake, but Grace shrugged both the words and the person who’d said them off with a tight nod, She carried her own oxygen down the stairs, even though it took her twice as long as if she’d accepted help. 

It seemed like everything she did these days was to prove a point. 

As soon as Grace made that realization, fatigue washed over her. It wasn’t the ordinary, sick-person fatigue, but a social fatigue. She didn’t like having to keep these walls up all the time. 

Rehearsal continued at a turtle-like pace, but Grace found the entire process a little mesmerizing. It was like watching a tower being built, starting with the foundation.

Hours later, the clock struck six and Skye wrapped up rehearsal, reminding the actors about when to be off book.

“...And I’ll send out an email with notes tonight,” she concluded. With that, everyone stood up. Ajay stretched out and pulled his blazer back on; he’d shed it sometime during a big group scene.

“Need a ride home?” he asked Grace.

“Yup,” she replied, shaking her legs out before standing up. “Oh, and before I forget, my parents invited you to dinner.”

Ajay’s face lit up. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm,” Grace replied, trying not to look at him. His smile inexplicably made her want to smile too.

“That’s great. I was dreading going back home and facing my mom’s boyfriend. I’d love to come.”

“Good, they’ll be happy,” Grace said noncommittally. The wave of fatigue washed over her again. It was taking effort to appear bored, to pretend like she was uninterested in the world. Even her face muscles just wanted to let loose and smile back, and her brain was a little curious about how Ajay would react. But she suppressed it. No sense getting entangled in whatever this was.

Twenty minutes later, the two were walking up the front path to Grace’s house. They both took their shoes off on the porch before heading inside.

Grace’s mom caught sight of them immediately and abandoned her cooking, wiping her hands on an apron before walking up to them. She and Ajay shook hands.

“You must be Ajay,” she said. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Lee,” Ajay said, a polite smile on his face. “You have a lovely home, and the cooking smells wonderful.”

Grace rolled her eyes, but her mom seemed pleased.

“You’re very kind. And call me Rita, please. I have to go back to cooking, but Grace will show you around.”

“I will?” Grace asked, half-joking.

“Unless you want to cook,” she said. “Your father was called for dinner service, so it’s just the four of us tonight.”

Grace said nothing as guilt grew in her heart. She knew full well the only reason he worked such long, hard hours was to pay her medical bills. He hated missing family dinner, and here he was missing it again because of her.

Her mom had gone back to cooking, but Ajay had noticed the darkness growing behind her eyes.

“Come on,” he said, “You’re supposed to be showing me around.”

Snapped out of her guilt spiral, Grace nodded and stepped into the living room.

“Living room, kitchen, dining room, bathroom,” she said in a monotone voice, pointing to each room as they went. “My parents’ room and James’ room are both upstairs, but mine’s down here because stairs are kind of hard for me.”

“Understandable,” Ajay said. “Can I see it?”

“My room?”

“Yes. I think one can tell a lot about someone from their room.”

“You’re going to psychoanalyze my bedroom. Why did I invite you over?”

He laughed, and she rolled her eyes even though his laugh made her want to giggle. It definitely made her blush.

“Alright, then,” she mumbled, and led the way to her room.

It wasn’t much, a small but bright room with pink paint on the walls and her bed nestled into the corner. She hadn’t really had much cause or means to decorate the walls, but the floor and bed were covered in books, and her laptop laid open on the bed.

“Interesting,” Ajay said, looking around the small room.

“Interesting?”

“It kind of looks like mine, honestly,” he said. “Save for the paint. Mine’s green. And my books are a little more organized than yours.”

“So what are you learning about me from that? That I’m clumsy and messy?”

“Sure,” he said, leaning against her door frame, “but also that you’re a big nerd.”

“Nerd?” she asked, nearly laughing from surprise. “How do you figure that?”

“The sheer number of books is a dead giveaway,” he said, and then he crossed over to her bed before she could stop him and picked up a thick book with a blue cover. “And does any non-nerd read about advanced differential equations for fun?”

Grace’s cheeks turned red, and she moved to sit down in her desk chair because she was getting a little tired from standing for so long.

“You got me there. I’m a closeted math nerd.”

“I can tell,” Ajay remarked, flipping through the book. “How can you stand this stuff? I barely passed trig.”

“I don’t know, I just like it. Maybe I have a brain for math.”

“You and my mother,” he said. “She’s a math and physics professor at the community college.”

“I think I would’ve gone into physics,” Grace said. “You know, if I’d stayed in school and stuff.”

“Would’ve? There’s no reason you can’t still.”

“No college is going to accept a high school dropout, Ajay.”

Ajay furrowed his eyebrows. “You can get your GED, though,” he said. “It’s just a test. I’ll help you study for it, but if you can understand this stuff then you’re definitely smart enough to pass.”

“I don’t know.” Grace didn’t want to plan too much for the future. Especially because she most likely didn’t have one. “Maybe,” she said, just to get him to stop talking about it.

He put the book back down on her bed. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, his expression curiously soft, a knock at the door frame startled them both.

James stood there, a shit-eating grin on his face and mischief in his eyes.

“James!” Grace said, surprised. “I didn’t even know you were home.”

“I wasn’t until now. Hi, Ajay. Nice to officially meet you.”

Ajay nodded. “Yes, good to meet you. How’s your summer been?”

“Oh, it’s been fine,” James said. “Mostly summer league baseball. But Grace makes me marathon America’s Most Eligible with her when I have free time.”

“You like AME?” Ajay asked incredulously as Grace shot James a death glare.

“She loves it,” James said before Grace could say anything to defend herself. “She’ll watch entire seasons in one sitting, it’s actually impressive.”

“Shut up!” Grace managed, shoving James with the small amount of strength she had. Ajay just laughed.

“You continue to surprise me, Grace.”

“Anyways, Mom says dinner’s ready,” James said, then disappeared from the door frame.

“We’d better go,” Grace said, “or else he’ll eat everything and leave nothing for us.”

Ajay extended a hand to help Grace up. 

“Who’s your favorite? On AME?”   
  


Grace stared at him.

He raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips. “We all have our vices, Grace.”

Dinner went by uneventfully, Grace’s mom somehow knowing which questions to steer clear of. After the sun finally set, Grace walked Ajay out to his car.

“Thank your mother for dinner for me,” he said.

“You already thanked her five times, but I’ll tell her again.”

“It never hurts to be too polite. It’s important that I impress your parents.”

That statement confused Grace. “Wait, why?”

“Oh, nevermind,” Ajay said, brushing the question off. Grace let it go, but she really wanted to know why he’d wanted her parents to like him. So she just squinted at him.

“I should go,” he said, patting the top of his car absent-mindedly. 

“Thanks for coming over,” Grace said. “It was nice.”

Ajay’s smile reemerged, lighting up the dusk. “It was. See you later?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Monday, right?”

He nodded. “Goodbye, Grace.”

With that, he got into his car. Grace almost felt disappointed as he drove off, but she couldn’t understand quite why.


	4. Chapter 4

Saturday mornings were Grace’s sacred time. It was the only time of the week that the house was quiet. Even though there were only four of them, the amount of noise that came from the Lee’s kitchen was insane sometimes. And Grace’s door was thin, and right next to it.

She had woken up with a headache, but that wasn’t altogether uncommon for her. She worried about the tumors having spread, though. What if her miracle stopped working?

She shook the worries away as she took off the BiPap and slowly sat up, scooting back against the mattress to lean against her headboard. She had a scan scheduled in a few weeks, and anyway, it’s not like the headaches were horrible. She had become a bit of a hypochondriac ever since her condition became stable. There was always something to worry about.

Grace set her feet gingerly on the ground, her arms and legs waking up less quickly than the rest of her body. It took a few seconds, but the buzzing finally subsided and she stood up. She plugged her cannula into the huge, bulky oxygen machine that she used when she was just chilling around the house. It was easier than lugging the oxygen cart around with her, and tripping James with her cannula was a bonus.

She shuffled into the kitchen on socked feet, the thick fluffy ones the only way to guard from how cold the floor got even in the heat of summer. She stood on her toes to retrieve a plastic container of leftover pancakes from the top shelf of the fridge. Being five foot one made her the shortest person in her family by six full inches, even though she and James allegedly shared DNA. He teased her about getting the ‘short’ gene from their biological parents all the time.

Anytime her thoughts went down that route, she always wondered if her parents regretted adopting her. She knew they’d never say it, but her medical costs were a huge burden for their family. She’d noticed her father coming home from long shifts sore all over, and her mother trying to hide the medical bills from Grace when they came in the mail. Her mother didn’t have a good poker face at all, though, so Grace knew from one look at her that the bill was almost more than they could afford.

She couldn’t even begin to list the ways her sickness affected James. He hadn’t been able to go on field trips, get new sports equipment, or even go to team banquets because her parents had needed someone to stay home or at the hospital with Grace to make sure she was still breathing. Things were less chaotic now that she was stable, but she was still acutely aware of how much her family had suffered for her. Wouldn’t it just be easier if she didn’t exist?

Not bothering to warm up the pancakes in the microwave, she sat in one of the chairs at the dining table, picking at the cold food with a plastic fork. She didn’t want to exist. 

In all the stories about cancer, nobody wrote about how boring it was. There were so many things she wasn’t allowed to do, food she wasn’t allowed to eat, places she wasn’t allowed to go. It was just hours and hours of sitting around. For all the good it did, there was no difference between sitting in a treatment center or sitting in front of her TV. 

She found herself missing the play, because it had given her something to do. And curiously, she found herself missing Ajay and Skye, the two people in the whole world that she felt like she belonged with.

_ Is this what having friends is like? _ she asked herself, already knowing the answer. She’d never been very popular in school, and she’d basically lived a life of isolation ever since her diagnosis. But the memories she had of friends, of playing hide-and-seek with James and Rory and forcing them to act during her childhood playwriting phase, she’d felt that same kind of warmth that she felt when she thought about Ajay and Skye.

She wasn’t hopeful that it would work out, though. Sure, they liked her now, but once school started back they’d both undoubtedly get busy with one thing or another and forget about her.

Maybe that was for the best. She didn’t want to hurt them when the cancer eventually drowned her completely.

Unable to even look at the pancakes, she packed them back up in their container and returned them to the fridge, grabbing an orange instead. She peeled it carefully and chewed on the slices, just about to head to the couch for yet another AME marathon when her phone buzzed in her pocket. Suspicious, she picked it up and read the text on the screen.

**Ajay:** Hey, are you awake?

She sat on the couch, losing her will to stand, and bit into another orange slice as she responded.

**Grace:** Yeah

**Ajay:** How do you feel about pastries?

**Grace:** Um, neutral to positive?

**Ajay:** Excellent. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.

Grace blinked. That had all happened so fast. But she couldn’t stop the smile from growing on her face. She had just been thinking about him.

Twenty minutes and a hasty fashion crisis later, Grace greeted Ajay at her front door. He was dressed to the nines, which she expected, and was carrying a glass pan full of little choux pastries, which she didn’t.

“Come in,” she said, trying to keep herself from smiling.

“No hair today,” he said, observing the scarf she’d wrapped around her head in an attempt to tame her unkempt hair.

“You already know my secret,” she replied, leading the way into the kitchen. “What’s in the pan?”

“A deconstructed croquembouche,” he said.

“A deconstructed what?”

“Croquembouche. It’s a really elaborate French dessert, a big tower built with these things,” he explained, picking up one of the pastries and handing it to Grace. She took it and examined it carefully.

“It’s got custard in the middle and caramel on top,” he said when she didn’t immediately take a bite. “It’s all homemade.”

“It looks delicate,” Grace said finally, still eyeing the little pastry. “Do you make pastries a lot?”

“Yes,” Ajay admitted. “I have a habit of stress-baking.”

“I could use a hobby like that,” Grace mused, just before taking a bite of the pastry. Her eyes widened as she tasted the custard in the middle, and how it perfectly complemented the caramel on the outside. The pastry itself nearly dissolved on her tongue.

Ajay smirked as she picked up another one, clearly enjoying seeing how much she liked them.

“Hungry?” he asked after she started on a third.

“Starving!”

Grace had rarely seen this side of herself in the last few years. A hint of the lighthearted optimist she used to be, the goofball that her friends and family loved to laugh with. Someone far more vulnerable than she could afford to be now.

She decided to let it stay. It was way too early in the morning for her to suppress anything. She caught Ajay’s eye and shot him a little grin, surprising him into a smile himself.

“You seem happy today,” he noted.

“It’s the pastries,” Grace said, biting back the words she really wanted to say.

“They’re good, aren’t they?”

“Hmmm,” Grace hummed, examining another puff. “Do I feed his ego… or lie?”

Ajay rolled his eyes, and Grace let out an accidental giggle. She clapped her hand over her mouth, but he had already noticed.

“Cute,” Ajay said, and then shook his head. “Dorky, but cute.”

Grace’s heart skipped a beat. “Did you just call me a dork?”

“Yes, because you’re a dork.”

“Take that back!” Grace said, shoving him lightly.  _ Oh my god, was this flirting? _

Unfortunately, she didn’t get to explore that thought any further before her mother’s footsteps echoed from the stairs.

“Grace, honey? Who’s here?”

“Just Ajay,” Grace called back. “He brought pastries. They’re okay.”

“Okay?” Ajay mouthed, his eyes shining and his grin wide.

“Shut up,” Grace mouthed back, before turning to smile angelically at her mother. 

“How nice,” her mother said, unfazed by Ajay’s presence. He handed her a puff in return.

“Choux pastries,” he explained. Grace’s mom bit into it, and she smiled once she’d swallowed.

“This is lovely,” she said. “Where did you learn to make these?”

“I had a phase in middle school where I wanted to be a chef,” he explained. “I made my parents sign me up for a youth summer camp at the Culinary Institute in California when I was fourteen.”

“And you were calling me a dork?” Grace cut in, snagging another puff.

“I never said I wasn’t just as much of a dork. But you’re a math dork, and that’s much dorkier than being a food dork.”

“And you like me anyways?” Grace asked, a tentative, impulsive question. It was a test, but she didn’t know what it was for.

Ajay didn’t reply immediately. Grace wondered if he could hear the way her heart was pounding out of her chest. She knew they were both acutely aware of her mother moving around the kitchen, of the floorboards settling under her father’s feet as he made his way down the upstairs hallway, of the shuffling from her brother’s bedroom as he stumbled around in his morning daze, trying to get dressed.

“Do I feed her ego?” he finally said, quietly so her mother wouldn’t hear, a smirk curling at the corner of his lip, “Or lie?”

This time she couldn’t hold back a smile, but she disguised it by biting into another pastry. His eyes didn’t leave hers until James sat down next to Grace, startling both of them.

“Good morning,” James said to Ajay, his eyes sparkling with mischief and his tone teasing.

“Good morning,” Ajay replied in kind. “Want a choux pastry?”

James took it and popped it into his mouth.

“Wow, this is really good. It must’ve taken you a long time to make all these.”

“Mmm,” Ajay hummed in agreement. “Yes, but I’ve had a lot of practice.”

Just then, his phone started to ring. He glanced at Grace apologetically.

“Sorry, I have to take this.”

“No problem, you can go out to the porch if you want privacy,” Grace said, pointing towards the door. Ajay nodded gratefully, and left. The second the door closed, James rounded on Grace, both eyebrows raised. He didn’t even have to say anything.

“Shut up,” Grace said, her smile gone but a light blush covering her cheeks.

“He just showed up with a pan full of pastries? Randomly?”

“He probably made extra, or something…” Grace said, trying to talk about something else, anything else.

James snorted. “I doubt that. It’s pretty clear he’s into you.”

Grace rolled her eyes, though she couldn’t deny that her heart got a little bit lighter after she heard him say that. She tried to shut it down.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said unconvincingly.

“Well, there’s something,” James said, his eyes on Grace even though she was staring at the floor. 

“It doesn’t matter,” Grace said slowly, still not making eye contact with her brother. “Even if there is something, it doesn’t matter, because I’m still dying and he’s still not.” She felt like she was forcing the words out, not truly meaning them.

Grace lifted her head to meet his eyes then, and she saw his face soften into something sad.

“Grace…” he said, evidently unsure how to finish the sentence. Grace didn’t know what she wanted from him, but it wasn’t that. She turned away, and at that moment Ajay came back through the door, finished with his phone call.

“Everything okay?” Grace asked, glad to have an interruption to the awkward silence.

“Oh, yeah. Erin just called. Any chance you want to join a bunch of us for a picnic in the orchestra pit? It’s a bit of a tradition.”

Grace raised an eyebrow. “Erin? The girl who plays Sarah?”

Ajay nodded. “She’s an actress at Berry, too.”

“Oh, Erin Ward? I’ve seen her around school,” James said. “She’s on my baseball team for the summer league, too. I didn’t realize she was doing a show.”

“You’re more than welcome to come with us,” Ajay offered. “It’s not a theatre thing, it’s more of a friend thing.”

“Will Skye be there?” Grace asked, not sure why she asked. Something in her chest wanted to see the redhead again.

“Of course,” Ajay said. “We always force her to come to this stuff.”

James shot her a side-eye glance, mouthing “Skye?”. Grace just shook her head, even more unwilling to have that particular conversation.

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s go.”

“No wig?” Ajay asked as Grace unhooked her cannula from the machine and plugged it into the canister in the cart she’d left in the kitchen last night.

“Not if they want to be friends,” Grace said. “I’m not interested in lying to people that I’m gonna have to get close to.”

“Touché,” Ajay responded, then held the front door open for her and James.

“Bye, Mom,” James called into the kitchen. “We’re going to lunch with some theatre nerds.”

Ajay caught Grace’s eye, and they both laughed.

The orchestra pit was a strange place to have a picnic, but once they arrived and Ajay turned on all the stand lights so that the small cave-like area was lit by an eerie blue glow, Grace understood why they liked it here.

Erin arrived shortly after Grace, James and Ajay, toting a stack of pizza boxes that she nearly dropped upon seeing James.

“James, oh my god! What are you doing here?”

“I’m your lighting tech’s twin brother,” James said, a bit of a puppy-dog look on his face as he looked at Erin. It was Grace’s turn to raise her eyebrows at her twin, who completely ignored her.

“Erin, you’re the lead?”

“Yup,” she said proudly. “Me and Rory, that is.”

“Yes, yes, I couldn’t have asked for two better leads,” Ajay said, sounding exasperated. Grace could tell he wasn’t from his smile. If anything, he seemed exactly in his element as he relieved Erin of the pizza boxes. 

“So, how’s baseball?” Grace asked both Erin and James, trying to keep her mind off of Ajay’s grin.

“We’re miserably losing, but it’s going well other than that!”

Bemused, Grace had to match Erin’s smile. They talked about summer league, Ajay doling out slices of pizza and staying out of the conversation about sports, until Rory and Skye arrived.

Even from a few feet away, Grace could see the darkness behind Skye’s neutral expression. She didn’t dare mention it, but scooted closer to the redhead once she sat at Grace’s side, trying to let her know she was there for her.

“Good to see you guys,” Ajay said. James offered Rory a fist bump, to which everyone else in the pit rolled their eyes.

“So, interesting place for a picnic,” James piped up after swallowing his first piece of pizza whole like a vacuum cleaner. 

“It’s dark in here,” Skye offered. “Quiet. Not many places like that in a theatre.”

“A good place to think,” Ajay added.

“And to run lines,” said Rory. “Not many others know about it, so it’s perfect.”

“Well now you’ve let me in. Won’t that disturb your haven?”

Ajay and Skye both opened their mouths, possibly to refuse, but Rory piped up before either of them could say anything.

“No way, Gracie,” they said, lightly punching her shoulder. “You’re welcome anywhere around here.”

Ajay let his mouth close, refocusing on his pizza slice. Skye’s pizza remained untouched as she examined the nearest music stand.

“James, have you ever seen  _ Ragtime _ ?” Erin asked, trying to defuse some of the tension.

“No, actually, I haven’t.”

“You haven’t? I’d have thought, with a twin like Grace, that you’d be well-versed in musical theatre,” Ajay asked, looking surprised.

“Ha, not so much. She and Rory would make me watch  _ The Sound of Music _ and  _ Hello, Dolly _ with them when we were kids, and I was forced to play background characters in their plays, but that’s it.”

“Come on, you know you loved acting in  _ The Snail That Lived Forever, _ ” Grace refuted.

“You think I liked having salt dumped on my head?” James retorted, and Grace pushed him.

Skye watched them, her blue gaze switching between them. 

“What about you, Skye? Any childhood tech shenanigans?” Grace asked, hoping to include the girl in the conversation and get rid of the lost look in her eyes.

To her surprise, Skye smiled a little bit and nodded. “Actually, when I was five, I liked to draw. Just… not on paper.”

The six of them traded stories well into the afternoon, including an animated recount of Rory’s sabotaged flash mob by Ajay. Skye added stories about previous shows at Berry and from the summer, vividly illustrating disastrous missed cues and the antics of a boy named Trevor, someone who seemed like a wholly unpleasant person to Grace.

The more she laughed, the more something settled in Grace’s chest. It felt like a puzzle piece, a part of her settling back where it belonged. She wondered how long it had been gone.

_ Too long, _ she concluded as she traded bitten-lip smiles with Ajay and good-natured eye rolls with Skye.  _ Way, way too long, _ she added when she saw the way her twin’s face lit up when Erin set her eyes on him, how his breathing stopped when she put a hand on his shoulder.

She was definitely going to tease him about that later.

Rory said they’d drive Grace and James home, but not before Ajay pulled Grace aside.

“You have a good time?” he asked.

“Sure,” Grace replied. “Sorry we didn’t get to talk more, just us.”

Ajay shook his head. “Nevermind about that.”

Grace nodded, feeling brushed off by his curt phrase. “Um… have a good evening, Ajay.”

“Thanks, Grace. You too.”

After saying quick goodbyes to Skye and Erin, the twins followed Rory out to their car. 

After they’d been driving for about five minutes, Rory turned the radio down.

“Grace, James, maybe you guys can help me with something,” they said, their eyes focused on the road.

“Yeah, what’s up?” James asked. From the passenger seat, Grace just angled herself to face them.

“It’s… these other actors. Clint and Natalie. They play Younger Brother and Evelyn Nesbit, Grace.”

She’d seen them before. They seemed almost glued to Rory’s side.

“What about them?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s kind of embarrassing to say,” they hedged.

“They seem kind of… desperate,” Grace said, trying to be kind but also trying to make it easier for Rory to talk about.

“Yeah,” they said, grabbing onto the lifeline. “I’m starting to think they’re obsessed with me.”

“They probably just both have a big crush on you,” James interjected. “It’s happened to some of my teammates. Probably just because you’re a big-shot actor.”

“Maybe,” Rory said, but they still looked troubled. “I don’t feel that way about them, though.”

“Maybe you need to tell them that. They could think it’s mutual, or maybe they’re enjoying flirting with you. Thrill of the chase, yknow.”

“Like you and Ajay,” James added from the backseat, entirely unhelpfully. If her cannula wasn’t in the way, Grace would’ve turned to glare at him. As it was, she was sure he had an impish grin on his face. Grace resolved to strangle him with her cannula as soon as they got home.

“Ajay?” Rory asked Grace. Grace just hid her face in her hands, too tired and too embarrassed to face her childhood best friend’s judgement about the crush that she’d tried her hardest to stamp out.

“You know what, I could see that,” Rory said after a long silence. Grace didn’t take her face out of her hands, but her heart started pounding again.  _ They could see that? _

“He brought her pastries this morning,” James said. “And I definitely caught them flirting.”

“Shut up!” Grace hissed at her twin, deciding that strangulation by cannula was too merciful. Instead, she’d steal her parents’ knife block in the middle of the knight and slice him up before anyone knew what had happened.

“Damn,” said Rory, whistling low through their teeth. “That’s practically a confession of love in Ajay-ese.” Grace’s mind went blank, either too full or too empty to process anything. Possibly both too full and too empty, all overwhelming her at the same time.

“I knew it!” James crowed. He was just starting to say something else, but Rory’s car came to a stop between the two houses.

“You’d better run, James,” Rory advised, seeing Grace’s death glare pointed at her twin. As James took off, Rory turned to Grace and laid a hand on her arm.

“I won’t say anything,” they said. “Not to Ajay, or anyone else. And anyways, it sounds like he feels the same way.”

Grace didn’t acknowledge the last part of what they said. “You’d better not tell anyone. I’m going to kill James as it is, I’d rather not kill you too.”

“I promise,” Rory said, grinning. “Now, if you’re trying to kill James, you’d better get inside.”

The next few weeks passed in kind. Grace got to hang out with Skye in the booth more often, which was a relief. She was able to escape the chaos of the stage and the house, and watching the colors reflect off Skye’s pale cheeks and nose could only be another benefit. She wasn’t sure if Skye noticed her watching.

Their masterpiece continued to take shape. Ajay’s masterful and admittedly irritating changes, edits and tweaks evolved the show from a passably entertaining show to a true work of art. So much so that although the entire cast and crew groaned when he yelled “Hold!” for the fiftieth time in a single scene, they all still got caught up in the emotion of it all. 

The whole group of them-- Grace, Ajay, Skye, Rory, Erin and James-- occupied the city with their mischief on their off time. Skye tore through department stores, folding up shirts and correcting displays before the workers could even find the mess that previous customers had created. Rory raided the food court, bestowing the title of the worst place they’d ever eaten at upon the Sbarro on the far end of the Cedar Cove Mall, and the title of the best on the hibachi place they’d quickly gotten addicted to.

Erin and James often disappeared into the sportswear and team logo shops, and one Friday after rehearsal, James emerged from a Nike store with a huge grin on his face and Erin’s hand in his. Grace stared, and James reluctantly let go of Erin’s hand and pulled his twin aside.

“I asked her out,” he said.

Grace’s eyes went big. “Wow, good for you!”

“We’re going to see the Portland Timbers this weekend. I was so surprised when she said she had tickets, I haven’t seen them play in a while.”

“Yeah, not since we were little,” Grace remembered. “I’m starting to think jocks are just a different type of nerd. Sports nerds.”

“Hmm,” James hummed. “Oh, speaking of nerds, do you have any plans this weekend?” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Maybe with a certain someone?”

Grace sighed. “Rory’s asked me to help run lines, so that’s what I’m doing Saturday. Nothing to do on Sunday.” She cast a look towards Ajay, who was huddled in a corner with Erin.

“Look, I think they’re talking about you,” Grace said, drawing James’ attention towards the gossiping friends. Erin was talking animatedly, a huge smile on her face. James blushed.

“She’ll be better for me than Amber was, at least,” James said. Grace pursed her lips. That was another thing she didn’t like to think about. James’ relationship with Amber got really intense really quickly, which was mostly because of the chaotic energy the small cheerleader had. But Grace still couldn’t help but wonder if James would have handled that whole thing better if she’d been there for him. If he would’ve recovered from the heartbreak more quickly. But she’d mostly been in the hospital, and the effect that had on her brother didn’t escape her notice.

Grace gently punched her twin’s arm. “I hope so too,” she said, hoping he hadn’t caught on to any of her internal struggle.

“You should go ask Ajay if he wants to do anything this weekend,” James said after a bit of silence.

“He sees me enough already,” Grace said. “He’ll get tired of me.”

“I really don’t think he could,” James replied. “Things like that don’t apply when you have a crush.”

“I don’t really know how he feels about me,” Grace said. “And even if he did like me, I’m not sure what I would do about it.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not like it’s hard. Just go ask him out, I promise it’s really just that easy.”

Grace shook her head. “No, no. I shouldn’t even like him. I’ll just end up hurting him.”

James sighed, but didn’t say anything else because Erin was heading towards the twins. Ajay fell back a little bit, obviously meaning for Grace to come join him, but she told herself not to. She smiled at him, thinking she probably owed him that much, and then walked faster to catch up with Rory.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> tw mentions of child abuse, blood & mild injury

Grace was lost.

Ever since Rory had left that morning, after an hour of running lines and another hour of trying to tease information about Grace’s crush out of her, Grace was alone. James and Erin were out on their date, Skye was completely unreachable, and Grace was too unreasonably irritated by Rory’s good-natured attempts at reconciling their friendship to talk to them about it.

That left one confidant for her, but he was the very one that Grace didn’t want to know about this. Everything around Ajay was so complex: her feelings for him, his supposed feelings for her, the juxtaposition of someone who’d recovered from cancer and someone who probably never would. Ajay was too good for her, too good to be hurt by her. Every time her thoughts wandered towards him, she shut herself up by imagining him at her funeral.

Deeper inside, her mind was like a tempest. Thoughts of wanting and needing the love and validation and just plain closeness that came with having close friends rose up and circled around before raining down as heavy guilt-hail, knowing that she was condemning each of them just by getting close.

Against her will, her fingers typed out a text to Ajay.

**Grace:** hey do u have a sec

**Ajay:** Are you okay?

Of course he’d ask if she was okay. It was just going to make her eventual death worse if he cared about her.

**Grace:** it’s weird but i kinda feel like i shouldn’t have friends, i’ll just end up making a lot of people sad when i die.

The words came out of her before she could stop them. She’d kept these thoughts to herself for far too long, and they spilled out of her.

**Ajay:** That’s how I felt when I was in treatment. Like I would only ever hurt people that I got close to.

**Grace:** but you were never actually going to die tho. it’s different

**Ajay:** 60%

**Grace:** ?

**Ajay:** You keep saying that I wasn’t actually going to die. The doctors said the survival rate for my cancer was 60%. That’s not exactly great odds, Grace. I was scared, too.

Grace immediately felt guilty. She’d always thought of osteosarcoma as a relatively easy cancer, just costing an arm or a leg before you were ready to go home and live a life in remission. Ajay seemed fine; it was hard to think about that just three years ago he could’ve died.

**Grace:** shit, im sorry

**Ajay:** No, it’s fine. But you should keep that in mind. I might have had less time to deal with what you’re dealing with, but I do understand it.

**Grace:** maybe. thanks for talking. i think i just held this inside for too long

**Ajay:** No problem.

**Ajay:** Actually, if you’re just sitting around, would you like some cookies? I made some extra.

Despite herself, Grace smiled. It would be a lot easier to face these feelings with another person, especially someone like him who drove all the thoughts out of her head and made her heart lighter than she’d thought it could ever be. Like it or not, she’d become addicted to him. Maybe if she could just keep him as a friend, she could find a way to suppress her feelings for him.

That thought flew out of her mind once her mother pulled up to Ajay’s house and saw her off with a knowing smile. She pushed her cart up to the Bhandari’s front door and rang the doorbell. She heard a lot of loud footsteps heading up to the door quickly, and backed up just before a small boy that looked almost exactly like Ajay threw the door open.

“Who are you?” he asked loudly. Not knowing what to say, Grace stuttered for a moment before Ajay came to the door wearing just a t-shirt and shorts, balancing on crutches. He didn’t have his prosthetic leg on, and once he saw Grace, he quickly turned red.

“Grace!” he said, gently pushing the kid out of the way and towards the kitchen. “Mo, go help amma finish packing, okay?”

“Okay bhai!” Mohit said happily and trotted off. Ajay nudged the door open with the leg of one of his crutches, and gestured Grace inside with a nod. She closed the door behind her. A woman called out to Ajay in a language Grace didn’t understand, and he responded with some equally incomprehensible words. A door slammed, and they were alone.

“My mom and Mohit are going camping,” Ajay explained. 

“Clearly I surprised you,” Grace said, not sure where to start. She took him in: his stained yellow Cedar Cove Fair t-shirt, his ratty black gym shorts, the sliver of brown skin that peeked out from under the hem of his gym shorts. His face was flushed and his hair was mussed, and maybe it was just because she was surprised because of how dressed down he was, but she thought he looked beautiful.

“You didn’t respond to my text, otherwise I would’ve changed…” he said. “Actually, wait, let me go change right now.”

“No, wait,” Grace said, settling down on the couch that Ajay had clearly just vacated, because it was playing some show from the History Channel on mute. He stopped and pivoted.

“Remember what I said about not wanting to put on appearances for people I want to get close to? And anyways… I think you look nice like that.”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want to look homeless in front of the girl I have a crush on,” he said, a small smile on his face. Then, he turned and hopped down the hall, leaving Grace staring at him as he left.

_ Crush? _ Grace thought.  _ So he DOES like me! _ She couldn’t help the smile that crossed her face, and how, regardless of any anxieties she might have had before, her mind just filled up with him. She knew it was a bad idea, but she just couldn’t bring herself to care right then.  _ Crush! _

He reappeared in the hallway, still legless but wearing a clean t-shirt and a pair of jeans pinned up on the left side. “Compromise,” he said.

_ I have a crush on you, too, _ she wanted to say.  _ You look really hot in those jeans. Do you want to go get lunch? My treat, wherever you want to go. _

Instead, she gestured to the TV and said, “What are you watching?”

He settled down next to her, closer than he would’ve usually been. Grace couldn’t tell if it was because of lack of balance on crutches, or because he’d wanted to be close to her. She figured it was both.

“Nothing special, just some documentary about swords,” he said, just as the screen did a cut-scene with flames as the transition.

“Dork,” Grace said, nudging him slightly. He shot her a grin.  _ Even more beautiful, _ she thought.

“So where are those cookies?” she asked instead, and Ajay started to stand up to go find them but his left crutch got tangled in her cannula. His crutches crashed to the ground and he barely managed to catch himself on the coffee table, and Grace’s cannula was painfully yanked out of her nose.

She inhaled sharply at the pain and sudden motion, but she didn’t get enough air and the breath sent her into a coughing fit. Ajay struggled to prop himself up on the coffee table, and only when he was seated did he notice that Grace was struggling to breathe and coughing violently.

Grace had started to become dizzy from the lack of air, but she had enough presence of mind to ease the nubbins of the cannula back into her nose after she felt Ajay tuck the split lines of the cannula back behind her ears. She calmed down as the fresh oxygen tricked into her lungs and focused on breathing deeply and slowly, painfully swallowing the coughs. Throughout the process, Ajay's hands rested on the sides of her face, his worried expression coming back into view as her vision faded back in.

She closed her eyes and rested her cheek in his hand, trying to avoid the heat of shame spreading over her face like a blush, and trying to keep the tears that had formed in her eyes while she was coughing from rolling down her cheeks, but to her horror, they did anyways. Ajay made a concerned sound when he saw it, and then Grace felt the pad of his thumb pressed against her cheek, wiping the tears away. 

Not wanting to seem any more pitiful than she already did, Grace reluctantly pulled away from Ajay’s hands, causing him to pull back as well, but he left one protective hand on her knee. She wiped the rest of the tears away and let out a forced laugh, which did a little bit to clear Ajay’s concerned expression.

“You okay?” Grace managed, her voice still a little weak from the debacle. She cleared her throat.

“I’m fine,” Ajay replied, his fingers rubbing the fabric of her jeans over her knee. “I hit my hip a little on the way down, but it’s nothing more than a bruise. I should be the one asking if you’re okay.”

“I’m okay now. Um, thanks,” she said, hesitating. “Thanks for helping with the cannula. And I’m sorry I tripped you.”

Ajay just shook his head, though a smile was the predominant expression on his face. “No need to be sorry. Let’s just chalk that up to an unfortunate accident, alright?”

Grace nodded, and Ajay’s hand on her knee came up to her shoulder and squeezed, a gesture that was purely friendly by all means but somehow felt more intimate with the way he looked into her eyes. She had to be careful not to stare into them for too long, or she’d get lost in them.

Luckily, before she had to make the choice to tear her eyes away from him or not, he broke the spell by leaning over to pick his crutches up off the ground and standing up, hopping into the kitchen and returning with a pan of cookies in a bag slung over his shoulder. He deposited the pan on the coffee table, then took his place back on the couch next to Grace and handed her a cookie.

“Here. To apologize for tripping over your cannula.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Thanks. You’re forgiven.” She bit into the cookie.

Half an hour of conversation passed easily between the two, although it was increasingly filled with tempting glances and casual touches-- a shoulder shove, a playful poke-- that seemed too intense to be just friendly. The short time ended when Grace’s phone buzzed insistently from the table. Ajay handed it to her, and she answered the call. It was from Rory.

“Where are you?” they demanded, then paused. “Wait, never mind. I need you to come over.”

“What’s wrong?” Grace asked, put off by the anxiety she could hear in their voice. Ajay shot her a concerned look.

“It’s Skye. Look, can you just come over?”

“Sure. Uh, I’m with Ajay, so I’ll ask him to drive me over, we can be there in 20 minutes.”

“Oh, great, you’re with Ajay? We actually need him, too.”

“You need-- Rory, what’s going on?”

Over the line, Rory sighed. “Please just come over. I’ll explain it all to you then.” With that, the line went dead.

“What was that?” Ajay asked.

“Rory needs both of us over at their house. They said it’s something about Skye?”   
  


Ajay’s eyes hardened, and Grace saw a terrifying darkness in his expression.

“Alright, come on.”

Without any further ado, Ajay propped himself back up into a standing position on his crutches and grabbed his car keys that were in a dish on the coffee table.

“Open the door for me, would you?”

Grace did so, and soon they were both in the car on the way to Rory’s house. Ajay bit his bottom lip, and then started talking.

“Listen, Grace, I’m not sure how much Skye has told you about her home life, and it’s not really my business to say, but it’s pretty well-known in the theatre program at Berry that her parents are assholes.”

Grace nodded. “She said something strange a few weeks ago, about them using her and her cancer to make money? But then she just dropped it and I didn’t want to bring it up again.”

“Probably best. Last year in our spring musical, her parents decided to sponsor a trip to compete in this theatre festival. But they also decided that that meant they got executive control over the show, and over her. They’re manipulative and horrible people, and if this is about something else they’ve done, I won’t be surprised.”

Grace chewed on the inside of her cheek. She’d heard Skye’s offhand comment in the light booth, and she’d noticed the darkness behind the girl’s blue eyes and goth makeup, but she hadn’t thought it could be that serious. 

“It’s out of my depth,” she explained to Ajay. “I don’t know how to help with this.”

“You can’t,” he replied. “I don’t think there really is a way to get rid of the Crandalls. But what we can do is just be there for her, let her talk to us and comfort her if that’s what she wants, okay?”

Grace nodded again, and then the two were silent for the remainder of the drive over.

Rory greeted them at their front door, stress clearly shown on their face. Wordlessly, they gestured down the hallway.

“She’s in my room,” they said quietly, obviously not wanting their voice to carry upstairs. “I don’t know much but if I had to bet anything, I’d say someone hit her.”

Ajay cursed under his breath and clenched a fist. 

“How bad?” Grace asked.

“I don’t think anything’s broken, but she’s got a black eye and a busted lip, and her nose is bleeding like all hell.”

Grace’s eyebrows raised, and Ajay’s eyebrows pinched together. “Can we see her?” he asked.

“Yes. Yeah, I think that would help. Come on,” Rory said, leading Grace and Ajay up the stairs.

Skye was sitting on their bed, an ice pack held up to her cheek and a cross expression on her face.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped, and Grace immediately looked away and stopped walking at the entrance to the room. Ajay continued in, and leaned in close to Skye.

“Let me see,” he said, leaning precariously on his crutches. Rory quickly fetched a seat for him before he could fall over.

Hesitantly, Skye removed the ice pack from her face. Her nose had stopped bleeding, leaving behind a red crust down her lips and chin. The side of her lip had also swelled somewhat, and a purple bruise was forming around her eye.

After inspecting her for a few seconds, using his fingers to tip her chin so he could get a better look from different angles, Ajay sighed and sat back. 

“Nothing’s broken,” he said, “Not as far as I can tell. You’ll live.”

Skye rolled her eyes and pressed the ice pack back against her eye.

Grace was starting to get weak from standing for so long, and Rory offered her the chair from their desk. She sat in it gratefully, and wheeled it over so she could get closer to Skye. She took the redhead’s ice-cold hand.

“What happened?” Grace asked. Unwilling or unable to sustain eye contact, Skye cast her eyes downward.

“My parents. They wanted me to come see a client with them, so they could exploit me to get more money. I said no. My father, I guess he was just stressed about the meeting going well, and he started throwing stuff. A book hit me. I don’t think he meant to.”

“And then you came here?” Ajay asked.

Skye nodded. “Nobody hit me, I was just in the way.”

Grace reached out to tuck a strand of Skye’s red hair behind her ear, and when Skye looked up, there were tears brimming in her eyes. Skye brushed them away angrily.

“I guess my life isn’t my own,” she said sharply. “If I just did what they told me, everything would be fine.”

“No, Skye. They shouldn’t use their own daughter,” Grace said, squeezing Skye’s hand. “I don’t really know what you’re going through, but I know it’s not right for them to manipulate you like that. And even if your dad didn’t mean to hit you with the book, he still did.”

The tears started spilling over onto Skye’s cheeks, but they weren’t sad tears. By the way the girl’s small body shook and her hands curled into fists, Grace knew that she was angry.

“No,” she said, “it’s not right! They don’t get to treat me like this. They’ve been shitty parents my entire life.”

“Do you wanna hit something?” Ajay asked, and Skye, Rory and Grace all turned to him in surprise. “When my parents were getting divorced, all I wanted to do was just explode. Keeping it contained isn’t healthy.”

Skye considered this, and then turned to Rory. “Do you have anything punchable?”

They gestured to the plushies at the end of their bed. “Go wild.”

Skye turned to face the plushies. She was silent for a second, then yanked her elbow back and walloped a stuffed bear as hard as she could.

“Hell yeah,” Grace said, cheering Skye on. “Give him what he deserves.”

Skye punched again, this time a precise hit on the nose of a stuffed lizard. A smile grew on her face, making her look slightly deranged. She hit another plushie, and another, and another. Her hits became less and less precise until she was wildly swinging, knocking the plushies off the bed and around the room.

“Fuck you, dad,” she said emphatically, launching a stuffed pig into Rory’s window, causing a crash as it hit the plastic blinds. “And fuck you too, mom,” she shouted, accompanied by a stuffed sheep being drop-kicked across the room. “I never asked for anything from you! I never wanted anything except… except... “ her voice got softer and softer until the last word was a whisper. 

“Except love.”

Then, to everyone’s horror, she sank down onto the mattress and started sobbing.

Rory looked to Grace and Ajay, who both looked alarmed. “Think we should give her some space?”

Ajay nodded. “Probably best.”

Grace closed the door behind them, muffling Skye’s sobs. The girl’s cries tore at her heart, and she longed to fix everything, but she knew she couldn’t. This was Skye’s healing process, and Grace knew that they had done well by leaving her alone. That didn’t make it any easier for Grace to walk away from the room, though, wanting nothing but to hold the redhead and make her believe that everything would be okay eventually.

Once they got back downstairs and out the front door, the three collapsed on the swing on Rory’s front porch.

“If I could hurt him, I would,” Ajay said, glaring at nothing in particular. “Make him see what he’s done to her.”

“I’m with you. But he’d just hurt us too, try and blackmail our families or something.” Rory chimed in.

“I know. But if I could just…” Ajay’s hand curled into a fist again, and Grace put her hand on top of his, gently unrolling it.

A car pulled into the driveway, and Rory stood up. Grace waved at Mrs. Silva as the woman stepped out of her car. Rory pulled her quickly inside, explaining the situation and leaving Grace and Ajay outside.

Once the door closed behind them, Grace leaned her head onto Ajay’s shoulder.

“Shit,” she said. He just nodded. Their hands were still linked, and Grace was holding onto him for support. She’d never seen anybody like that before, and she couldn’t even conceptualize how much Skye had been affected by the years of abuse that her parents had been enacting on her.

“You’d think,” Grace said, “that surviving cancer would entitle you to a little gentleness.”

Ajay turned to lean his head back on Grace’s, thinking about what she’d said.

“I think that if there’s one thing I’ve learned about life, it’s that nothing really entitles anyone to anything.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A beach party and a confession

Skye was living with the Silvas for the time being, and Grace went over to their house every day to check on the redhead. She seemed to be doing better-- Grace even caught her smiling over breakfast once-- but Grace knew that Skye had a long road of recovery ahead of her. The girl still flinched at sudden loud noises and Grace still saw that darkness behind her eyes, the darkness that Grace would do anything to get rid of.

The longer Skye stayed with the Silvas, the longer she got used to a family who didn’t resent her every move, the more that darkness faded. Grace could see it in the way she held herself, in the way she laughed a little more easily at jokes, in the way she started to really open up to the group and talked about herself more.

Before tech week started, Rory invited the whole cast and crew of Ragtime out to the beach for a day. Self-conscious of her physique, Grace initially declined, but once she saw that Ajay was planning to attend, she overthought and texted Erin incessantly, trying to gauge whether or not she could just wear a dress instead of a swimsuit, because she suddenly found herself wanting to go and enjoy the sunshine.

Erin seemed to immediately catch on to the fact that Grace didn't want to make a fool of herself in front of Ajay, and was more than happy to help her coordinate a look fit for the beach. Grace sent far too many pictures of different outfits to a very amused Erin, before they settled on the simple combination of a crop top and high-waisted shorts. Grace adamantly refused to wear any type of swimsuit, far too insecure to show her body off to anyone, much less the guy she liked.

A little leg, though, might not hurt.

Once she was done agonizing over the outfit, Grace flopped on her bed, fully dressed about an hour before Rory was supposed to drive her over, and scrolled through her text history with Ajay.

It was a bit cold, she’d had to admit, ever since the day he’d admitted his crush on her. He seemed to have taken her complete lack of response as a rejection, and Grace was kicking herself for it. She just didn’t know how to react. She’d never been in love; never had time or energy or the maturity for feelings that went further than a childhood crush. 

She hoped he understood that, but looking back at their short and stilted texting history, as well as the last few weeks where their only real interactions had been in rehearsal, and she knew he probably hadn’t. She couldn’t blame him, though. He’d put his feelings for her out there and she’d just… said nothing. 

From this, Grace concluded that she was going to have to step it up a bit at the beach to let him know that she felt the same way. She could also just tell him, but he was getting more intense by the day with tech week coming up fast, and she was worried something like that would just derail him completely. Debating how exactly to do it, she texted Rory.

**Grace:** hi, how to tell someone you like them without actually telling them??

**Rory:** dude do u think i'm some kind of love guru

**Grace:** maybe??? ur popular for a reason, rory

**Rory:** ugh u know i don’t like that kind of attention

**Rory:** anyways i thought u didn’t want him to know

**Rory:** or did something change?

**Grace:** something changed and now i need to tell him but im worried that if i just say it he’ll freak out

**Rory:** good call, he gets intense during hell week

**Rory:** ummmmmm okay i think it’s probably best to just… physically show it? if that makes sense?

**Grace:** wdym

**Rory:** like, sit a little closer to him than normal, or randomly touch him, or offer to rub sunscreen on his back or something

**Grace:** oh ok that sounds simple enough

**Rory:** if it fails dont blame me i told u im not a love guru

**Grace:** shhhh

Satisfied, Grace set her phone down to charge and napped for the remaining time before Rory rang the doorbell to get her, just to ensure that she’d have enough energy for the long day of socializing that she had ahead of her. Being around that many people would be exhausting. She just hoped she’d get some time alone with Ajay.

Rory picked her up, Skye riding shotgun. The redhead was busy applying sunscreen all over her pale skin.

“Sunscreen much?” Grace asked, sliding into the car and pulling her oxygen cart in after her. After some consideration, she’d gotten her parents to invest in a cart that pulled two canisters at once. With the increased supply, she would be able to stay for the duration of the party, as well as having a little more freedom to go out with her friends.

“I burn after about five seconds in the sun,” Skye explained, vigorously rubbing another layer of SPF 80 onto her arms. “I’m guessing neither of you two have that problem.”

Rory laughed. “Sunburns? Who’s she? Never heard of her.”

Rory had a point, their skin was about as dark as it got. Grace was willing to bet they hadn’t ever worn sunscreen in their life.

“I usually just get a little darker,” Grace said, “but ever since chemo I’ve been burning a little, too. I don’t really know what’s normal since I have no idea who my parents were, but James doesn’t burn.”

“No idea who your parents…?” Skye asked, sounding confused.

“She and James were adopted when they were eight,” Rory explained. 

“We never knew our parents,” Grace added. “I just remember growing up in the system, until Mom and Dad adopted us.”

“That’s rough,” Skye mumbled, turning back to the front of the car.

Grace shrugged. “Could’ve been worse. At least me and James got to stay together, and Mom and Dad found us pretty early on. Still, it wasn’t much fun.”

The car sat silent for a little while as they drove, until Rory started fiddling with the car radio.

“Any requests?” they asked, settling on a cheesy pop station. Both Skye and Grace immediately wrinkled their noses.

“Ew, not that,” Grace said, and Skye took over the dial after Rory surrendered it. Skye turned to a metal station and cranked the volume up. Metal might not have been Grace’s cup of tea, but she willingly headbanged along to the song, seeing how it made Skye smile as she surrendered herself to the music.

When they finally got to the beach, just a short drive out of town, most everyone was already there. While a couple cast members did a double take at her hair (she’d forgone the wig or even a scarf, since her hair had grown out to a manageable length), most didn’t even notice as Rory, Grace and Skye were seamlessly absorbed into the party.

Grace looked around for Ajay, and spotted him surrounded by crew members at a nearby table. Grace sighed. So much for getting him alone.

Unfortunately, while she was still staring at him, he spotted her and made eye contact. He mouthed something, but she shook her head to indicate that she didn’t understand. He rolled his eyes, smiling, and mouthed something that Grace could make out as “save me”.

Oh. So he did want to see her. Interesting. Waving to take her leave from Rory and Skye, the former of whom shot her a wink which she duly ignored, she rolled her cart through the sand towards the table Ajay sat at.

Upon seeing Grace, Erin immediately offered the girl her seat next to Ajay. Once Grace had settled in, Ajay reached over to take her hand. She just stared at him.

“I was hoping to get to talk to you,” he said. “Later, though, once they all go swimming.”

Dumbstruck and very aware of his hand on hers, Grace could only nod. She was rewarded with his most beautiful smile, in her opinion: it was really more of a smirk on his lips, but the look in his eyes was genuine. 

Once everyone in the sizable cast and crew arrived and had a few minutes to greet each other, Erin and Rory led the charge into the ocean. Nearly everyone followed, but Skye and a few of the other techs that Grace barely recognized stuck behind to pick up sea glass a short distance away.

Grace felt Ajay’s eyes on her, and she knew he wanted to talk. She turned to him.

“What’s up?” she asked, as calmly as she could.

“I wanted to apologize,” he said. “I’ve been awkward around you ever since that time at my house, and… you don’t deserve that.”

Surprised at his forwardness, Grace didn’t have anything to say for a few seconds, until he raised an eyebrow and she remembered how to speak.

“Um,” she said clumsily, and he smirked. She buried her face in her hands, trying to conceal her blush. “I’m not… I don’t know what I’m doing,” she whimpered, and his hand on her shoulder told her that he’d heard what she’d said.

“I know. I’ve been thinking a lot about what happened. Because I’m not one to take a risk like confessing my feelings if I’m not completely sure that the other person feels the same way. Before I thought about saying that-- god, Grace, I was so gone for you.”

Grace blushed again but maintained eye contact.

“I was pretty sure you liked me back, so that’s why I mentioned my crush, and then I got upset when you didn’t say anything back and I was pretty cold towards you.”

He took Grace’s hand again, lacing their fingers together.

“It pretty much occurred to me after a while that you’d just been too surprised by what I’d said to respond. That or maybe you weren’t ready to date anyone. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense. So if you still like me even though I was kind of an asshole, I’m happy to take things slow, or to wait for you to be ready.”

Grace raised her eyebrows. “Why would you do that? You could have anyone, wouldn’t you rather have someone that wouldn’t be inconvenient?”

“You think I care about convenience?” he asked. “I’m just not in the business of denying myself simple pleasures, like admitting when I like someone.”

Grace stuttered again, lost for words. She just seemed to lose her mind whenever he said that, especially when he was that close to her and the sun was hitting his hair just so. It made her want to put her free hand in it, just to see how his hair would feel against her fingers.

So, screwing up all of her courage, she did. His eyes widened initially, but then he relaxed into the touch, leaning his head against her hand as she ran her fingers through her hair.

“So…?” he said, looking straight at her. She wanted to kiss him so badly, but she held off. That was almost certainly something she’d regret if she just went for it.

“I still don’t know what I’m doing,” she said carefully, “but if you’re down to be patient with me, well… I kind of have a crush on you too.”

Ajay bit his lip. “Good, that’s what I thought.”

He looked for a second like he was going to lean in to kiss her, but she tensed up at having someone too close to her and he backed away, a bitten-off smirk still on his lips.

And just like that, their rapport went back to normal, albeit with a few extra longing glances. When he turned to supervise their friends still playing in the water, she took the opportunity to simply stare at him.

While she slightly lamented the fact that he’d chosen to wear a shirt to the beach party, the way his eyes shone golden in the sun more than made up for it. His smile was stunning, looking a little smug as his eyes swept over all of their friends. 

“Ready for hell week?” Grace asked. He turned his captivating gaze back towards her.

“Hell yes,” he said emotionlessly, then grinned as Grace cracked up.

“Was that a joke?” she asked. “Wow, I never thought I’d see the day.”

Ajay rolled his eyes. “Yes, I am capable of humor. But don’t tell anyone.”

“Don’t want anyone to know you have a personality?” Grace teased, raising an eyebrow.

“Nobody but you,” Ajay clarified, his expression more tender.

The cast and crew of  _ Ragtime _ whiled away several hours under the hot summer sun until Rory declared that it was time to head inside. The entire crew piled into a few cars and drove to the closest restaurant, which happened to be the Golden Griddle. Ajay made a sympathetic face at Grace and tried to get the others to change their mind, but the group had already decided that’s where they wanted to go. He squeezed her hand as they walked in, as the icy guilt of what her parents’ life could’ve been gripped her heart.

Grace made it through dinner somehow, Rory and Erin’s light hearted jokes working together with the warmth of Ajay’s good leg pressed up against hers and Skye’s rare but contagious smile making a few appearances to warm the whole booth. She was able to ignore, for a full half hour, the history of the place they were in and just focused on the pancakes, fluffy but not as light as her father’s.

After a while sitting there with her friends, a spot of tension settled behind Grace’s right eye and grew and grew until she couldn’t focus on the conversation anymore, just on the pressure and pain in her head. A stream of anxieties came back, most of them focused around this hallucinated tumor that she was convinced was growing in her brain. Was that even possible? Could thyroid cancer even spread to her brain? She wasn’t sure, but the headache wasn’t helping anything.

Soon enough, the group packed up and headed out. Grace made a beeline for Rory’s car, Ajay stopping her on the way and leaning in, supposedly to press a kiss to her cheek, but she jerked away from him almost involuntarily. He drew back, and Grace could tell he was trying not to look hurt.

“Sorry,” she explained in a voice that was too weak. “Bad headache. I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Okay,” he nodded, a smile returning to his face. “Goodnight.”

It was just Rory and Skye in the car heading home, so Grace didn’t feel too self-conscious when she had to ask Rory to pull over so she could throw up her dinner on the side of the road. Throwing up wasn’t uncommon for her, but doing it due to the pain of a headache was concerning. Grace was embarrassed when Skye left the car to hold Grace’s short hair back, keeping the ends from getting dirty and rubbing her back. The gesture was kind, but it made Grace feel even more pathetic.

Rory dropped Grace off first despite her home being out of their way to drop Skye off, but the concerned look in their eyes and the nausea that continued to well up in Grace’s throat stopped her from arguing. Once inside, she explained to her mother what had happened, and dutifully swallowed the painkiller and the granola bar that she offered her. Finally, her mother tucked her in, stopping just short of smoothing her hair off of her forehead, before switching the light off and leaving the room.

Grace had arrived home at 8 pm, but it took three hours and two more doses of the painkiller before she was finally able to drift off to sleep. As she slept, the headache eased, until it faded out into just an echo of the tension that had been in her head earlier. 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the show gets closer, the tension mounts.

**Chapter 7**

“Grace?” Skye asked in her small voice, leaning against the doorway of the tech booth where Grace had taken up residency just a few hours before the first show was supposed to start. 

“Hm?” Grace asked absently, not looking up from tinkering with the lighting board. There wasn’t much to do besides set the sequence for the top of the show, but she was going over and over the cues in her notebook until she had them memorized. It was a bit tough with the headache pulsing through her head, but the darkness of the booth helped.

“I think Ajay finally lost it,” Skye replied without hesitation. “He’s been yelling at everyone all day.”

“Isn’t that normal for him?” Grace asked. She’d barely had a chance to see him alone because of the demands of Hell Week, but he had brought over some biscuit the previous night and curled up on her couch, apparently having been kicked out of his kitchen for stress-baking too much. Whenever she’d seen him at the theatre, though, he’d looked high-strung and thoroughly stressed.

“Yeah, but now he’s gone silent completely. He just has his head buried in his hands, won’t talk to anyone. We were hoping you might be able to get through to him?”

Grace blinked, surprised. “Um, yeah, I guess I can try.” 

Picking up her bag and slinging it around her shoulders, Grace followed Skye down the stairs. Going across the house as the quickest route to backstage, and sure enough, right by the sound cue desk, Ajay was sitting with his face hidden in his hands. The sound guy, some guy in a beanie with curly brown hair, seemed pissed but wasn’t saying anything.

Rory appeared with another chair, and as Grace sat across from Ajay they corralled the concerned techs and actors out of the area to give them some space. Grace thought she heard the sound guy grumbling about not being able to set his programs, but she couldn’t care less.

“Ajay?” she asked lightly, not daring to touch him. “Hey, what’s up?”

Ajay didn’t say anything, but she thought she heard him whimper from behind his hands. Screwing up her courage, she grabbed his arms, gently pulling his hands away from his face.

He looked horrible, like he hadn’t slept in days. The bags under his eyes, which had been worse than usual for the past week, had gotten much darker. He looked like he was on the verge of either tears or screaming, she couldn’t decide which.

Grace let out a breath, knowing Ajay was in bad shape but also knowing that she couldn’t really say anything to make him feel better. Instead, she laced her fingers in his and coaxed him to get up.

“Your sound guy looked pissed,” she explained. “I’ve already done my setup, so how about we sit in the house until it opens? Skye’s got control of everything, and you can still give your speech later.”

Begrudgingly, Ajay agreed and stood up with some effort. Grace smiled at him tentatively, and although he didn’t smile back, his face relaxed just the slightest bit.

Once they’d gotten to the house, Grace dug a bag of goldfish out of her bag and handed it over. Ajay took the plastic bag and examined it, studying it as if it were something bizarre or strange, rather than a simple collection of cheesy crackers.

“They’re goldfish, ‘Jay,” Grace said, trying out the nickname and liking the way it rolled off her tongue. He looked over, cracked the tiniest smile that was more of a grimace, and opened the bag.

“Thanks,” he replied, carefully placing a single goldfish on the tip of his tongue and chewing it up almost contemplatively. Grace simply watched him, fascinated by how he could make something as simple as having a snack into something deep and thought-provoking without even trying. 

After munching a few goldfish under Grace’s careful scrutiny, Ajay seemed to regain some sort of consciousness and raised an eyebrow in Grace’s direction.

“You’re staring at me,” he said.

Grace shrugged. “Yeah, well. You can’t blame me. Anyways, is that all you’ve had to eat today?”   
  


Ajay looked down at the bag guiltily, and Grace narrowed her eyes.

“Alright, that’s it, I’m bringing you to my house for a really late dinner. I’m gonna get some actual food in you if it kills me, okay?”

Ajay rolled his eyes. “You won’t just let me have my process?”

“No. You look awful,” Grace replied, “and I can’t be seen with someone who looks like he’s about to yeet himself off a cliff.”

“Ah, so this is all selfish.” Ajay paused. “Wait, did you really just unironically use the word  _ yeet _ ?”

“I did,” Grace said, “and I am completely unapologetic.”

“Fine. Fine, I’ll come eat dinner with you. As long as you promise to let me stop for coffee, too.”

Grace nodded, then moved to get up. Ajay set his hand on top of hers, causing her to sit back down.

“Hey. Thanks.”

“You’re… welcome?”

Ajay nodded. “I needed some goldfish and some space to think. Thanks.”

Then, incredibly, he leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Grace’s cheek. Grace blushed fiercely and fixed her eyes at the ground even as he stood up and called everyone around for the pre-show speech.

***

On the way to Grace’s house, Ajay insisted on stopping at the nearest Starbucks for coffee.

“You can’t tell anyone I’m doing this,” he whispered to Grace as they walked in.

“What, getting coffee?”

“At  _ Starbucks _ ,” he said, putting great emphasis on the word as if it was a sin. “I don’t want to shatter my hipster image.”

“Image? So you’re not actually a hipster? What’s the real truth, Ajay Bhandari? Who is the man behind the mask?” Grace held out a hand towards Ajay, pretending she was a reporter holding a microphone.

Ajay leaned in close to her hand and whispered, “I really really like iced coffee.”

Grace cracked up, then found a table to wait at while Ajay ordered. Once he sat down, she adopted a teasing smirk and rested her chin on her hand.

“So,” she said, “a secret love for iced coffee. Seems like you’re revealing all your secrets today.”

“Just the latest piece of the puzzle,” Ajay said. “Now. Shall we?”

“We shall,” Grace agreed. “I’m gonna make you eat vegetables.”

“Gross,” Ajay wrinkled his nose. He offered his hand to Grace as they stood up, but didn’t let go of it the entire walk back to his car.

The drive back to Grace’s house was mostly quiet, Ajay softly singing along to various songs on the radio. Grace’s headache had reappeared with a vengeance, and she stayed focused on the taillights of the cars ahead of them. Too soon, the lights started stabbing into her eyes and she covered them with her hands, trying to block out the light.

“You okay?” Ajay asked, having looked over at the slight movement.

“Just a headache,” Grace said, but her weak voice wasn’t very convincing. Ajay made a concerned noise but kept driving, though he looked over at her frequently.

Five minutes passed, and the pain in Grace’s head only grew.

It grew past the point where she could just say it was a migraine, and past the point she even thought she could tolerate. She had hoped the pain would be enough to knock her out, but it kept growing and she was awfully, horribly awake through the entire ordeal. With what little thought power she had left, she could only rationalize this to be the agony that she'd always feared as a cancer patient. The awful, horrible battle that everyone faced at some point. She'd nearly died before, drowning in her own lungs and struggling for her life, but this was worse. So much worse.

Barely conscious, tears rolling down her face and inhuman sounds ripping their way out of her throat, she barely heard Ajay start cursing and turn around, barely felt him reach into her jacket pocket to grab her phone, could hardly even hear him talking to her parents in a panicked voice.

All she knew was, right then, she wanted nothing more than to die. Because then, at least, the pain might go away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> before anyone says anything i'm sorry


End file.
